Modelling and design of origami-inspired deployable structures for aerospace applications

The increasing power demand of modern spacecraft requires solar arrays that are both lightweight and highly compactable. Origami-inspired deployable structures offer an effective solution, achieving large deployed areas within limited launch volumes. However, their strongly nonlinear folding behaviour poses significant challenges for numerical modelling: full finite element analyses are accurate but computationally expensive, limiting their use in early-stage design. This PhD research, conducted in collaboration with Astradyne S.r.l., an Italian start-up developing textile-based photovoltaic technologies, addresses this gap by advancing reduced-order modelling techniques for origami-inspired systems. Astradyne’s core technology merges high-performance textile with rigid-flexible electronics, enabling ultralightweight deployable solar arrays, which motivates the need for efficient and predictive simulation tools. Building upon existing reduced-order methods, this work develops a new dynamic bar and hinge framework that extends classical quasi-static formulations to time-dependent behaviour. The framework is implemented in MATLAB, incorporating inertia and damping and supporting multiple integration schemes (Forward Euler, Newmark-beta and HHT-alpha). Validation against analytical cases and high-fidelity finite element models demonstrates accurate predictions of deployment transients, oscillations, and post-deployment dynamics. The proposed method preserves the computational efficiency of bar and hinge models while expanding their applicability to dynamic analyses. It thus provides both a methodological advancement in the mechanics of deployable structures and a practical design tool for next-generation origami-based solar arrays and lightweight space systems.