A Spatial Eight-Bar Linkage and Its Association With the Deployable Platonic Mechanisms

This paper presents for the first time a novel two degrees of freedom (2-DOF) single-looped dual-plane-symmetric spatial eight-bar linkage with exact straight-line motion. Geometry and kinematics of the eight-bar linkage are investigated and closed-form equations are presented revealing the exact straight-line motion feature of the linkage on the condition that two symmetric inputs are given. In order to secure two symmetric inputs, a geared eight-bar linkage is then proposed converting the linkage into a 1-DOF linkage of exact straight-line motion. The direction of the straight-line motion produced by the proposed eight-bar linkage is changeable and is only dependent on the structure parameters of the two pairs of V-shaped R-R dyads of the linkage. Further, the proposed eight-bar linkage is applied to the synthesis and construction of a group of deployable Platonic mechanisms with radially reciprocating motion. The virtual-center-based (VCB) method is presented for the synthesis and prototypes of the deployable Platonic mechanisms are fabricated verifying the mobility and motion of the proposed mechanisms.