Creating Rigid Foldability to Enable Mobility of Origami Inspired Mechanisms

Abstract

Rigidly foldable origami crease patterns can be translated into corresponding rigid mechanisms with at least one degree of freedom. However, origami crease patterns of interest for engineering applications are not always rigidly foldable, and designers trying to adapt a crease pattern may be confronted with the need to add more mobility to their design. This paper presents design guidelines for making alterations to a crease pattern to make it rigidly foldable. Adding creases, removing panels, and splitting creases are presented as potential alterations for increasing mobility, and approaches for determining the position and number of alterations are discussed. This paper also investigates means for reducing the number of changes necessary to achieve this condition. The approach is developed in general and illustrated through a demonstrative example.