折りたたみの科学と生物模倣工学

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. This study reveals the folding principle of hindwings in beetles and earwigs by using origami geometry. The proposed methods and the design software enable to use these excellent natural deployable structures in design of products with foldable/deployable functions.