Deployable High-Strength Robotic Arm with Folding and Rolling Storage and Mobile Robot Including the Same

Deployable High-Strength Robotic Arm Combining Folding/Rolling Storage with Rigid Folded Structures

This technology is a deployable robotic arm that utilizes multiple panels wound around a hub. By applying sliding and folding mechanisms, it minimizes volume through a rolling method during storage and achieves high structural rigidity upon deployment by forming a folded structure via shape-forming and shape-maintaining devices.

Conventional deployable robotic arms have faced technical limitations where storage efficiency and structural rigidity are in conflict due to link joint play, weakened strength at folding lines, and thickness constraints inherent in rolling structures.

This technology proposes a method where panels with sliding and folding structures are stored by winding them around a hub. Upon deployment, a shape-forming device guides the panels into a folded structure, while a shape-maintaining device—equipped with a spacing adjustment mechanism and a wire winder—ensures structural rigidity in the deployed state. This allows for both high storage efficiency and high rigidity. It serves as an innovative solution to the fundamental limitations of existing robotic arms in fields requiring both portability and strength, such as space structures, disaster site exploration equipment, and mobile service robots.

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Key Features:

• A hub configured to rotate forward or backward to wind or unwind multiple panels
• Multiple panels with sliding and folding structures that deploy and retract as they are unwound from or wound onto the hub
• A shape-forming device coupled to the panels that guides them into a folded structure as they are unwound from the hub
• A shape-maintaining device that sustains and extends the folded structure formed by the shape-forming device