Beetle Inspired Deployable wings，甲虫後翅の折り畳みに基づく展開翼

Technologies to fold large-sized structures into compact shapes are required in a variety of engineering applications with multiple scales and purposes, such as space-deployable structures represented by solar array paddles and antenna reflectors of satellites, medical devices, and many articles of daily use like funs and umbrellas. Insects have addressed the same issue for hundreds of millions of years as they acquired flight wings and developed several interesting solutions. Foldable wings ironed out the disadvantages of the wing, bulkiness and vulnerability, and gave the abilities of high-speed locomotion on ground and penetrating into narrow space like leaf litter layer and under soil without loss of flight ability enabling fast and long-range migration. In the same way, folding technologies are expected to generate innovative ideas for usage and application in various engineering products. This study primarily proposes a procedure to design a crease pattern for beetle-inspired deployable wings based on the hindwings in relatively large-sized beetles like horn beetle or chafer. Our proposed method enables the design of rigid-foldable wings based on beetle-inspired patterns, which is considered beneficial in designing the deployable structures.

Research Collaborators

Tomohiro Tachi (The University of Tokyo)

Ryuma Niiyama (The University of Tokyo)

Fujikawa Taro (Tokyo Denki University)

Yoshihiro Kawahara (The University of Tokyo)

Publications

Kazuya Saito, Tachi Tomohiro, Fujikawa Taro, Niiyama Ryuma, Yoshihiro Kawahara, Deployable Structures Inspired by Insect Wing Foldingm, in Origami 7: Proceedings from the seventh meeting of Origami, Science, Mathematics and Education, Vol.3, 747 - 762, 2018.9.

Kazuya Saito, Tomohiro Tachi, Ryuma Niiyama, Yoshihiro Kawahara, DESIGN of a Beetle inspired deployable wing, ASME IDETC/CIE2016, 41th Mechanisms and Robotics Conference, Cleveland, USA, 査読有, DETC2017-67697, 2017.8

大きな構造をコンパクトに折りたたむ技術は，傘や扇子等の日用品から人工衛星用の大型展開アンテナまで，工学において様々な目的とスケールで必要とされている．一部の昆虫たちは飛翔のための翅を獲得した4億年前から同じ問題に取り組んでおり，それぞれの種においてその形態や生態にあわせた最適な展開・収納機構を獲得している．進化の過程で最適化されたこれらのユニークな解の数々は，生物模倣工学の観点から非常に興味深い研究対象である．

研究グループでは，カブトムシなどの大型甲虫の後翅にみられる特徴的な折線パターンに着目し、人工の展開翼に応用するための展開図設計法の開発を行っている．現在この展開図を羽ばたきドローンの展開翼に応用するべく開発をすすめている．甲虫の後翅の構造と可変機構を利用することで，飛行に必要な高い強度・剛性と優れた収納・展開特性を両立した革新的な展開翼を設計することができる．提案手法によって翼の形状と変形パターンに合わせて折線を設計することで，上記の優れた特性を様々な形状，スケールの展開翼に応用できると期待される．

共同研究者

舘知宏(東大)、新山龍馬(東大)、川原圭博(東大)

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