Expanding the family of plane-symmetric 6R deployable polygon mechanisms by systematically exploring the layout of R-joint axes

In this paper, the impact of parameter variations on the deployable motion characteristics, mobility, input singularity, and deploying/folding performance of plane-symmetric Bricard mechanisms is studied. Firstly, two classes of revolute pair axes used to construct deployable polygon mechanisms (DGMs) are reviewed, and their value ranges are further refined. Secondly, all possible axes arrangement schemes for plane-symmetric 6R DGMs are presented for the first time. Then, an improved schematic synthesis method is proposed, which can be used to design all plane-symmetric 6R DGMs that belong to the plane-symmetric Bricard mechanisms. Thirdly, the improved design method is applied to create a series of single-degree-of-freedom plane-symmetric 6R DGMs. Then, feasible domain searches are performed, and some of them are prototyped. Subsequently, the input singularity of plane-symmetric 6R DGMs is analyzed. Finally, two deploying/folding performance indices are proposed to evaluate the performance of plane-symmetric 6R DGMs with different fully deployed and fully folded states based on actual application scenarios. This work expands the variety and quantity of DGMs, which will also advance the development of robotics, mechanical metamaterials, and kirigami mechanisms.