Abstract:To improve the accuracy of repeated deployment and positioning of solar panel, a solar panel repeatable expandable mechanism was developed. The expandable mechanism adopts the principle of internal staggered transmission of tether to realize the synchronous and repeated deployment function of the secondary windsurfing board, and adopts two horizontal and vertical arrangements to adapt to different deployment conditions of the solar windsurfing board. Based on engineering reality, two factors, hinge gap and windsurfing flexibility, were introduced to establish a dynamic model of expandable solar windsurfing, and simulation and numerical analysis were performed. The analysis results show that the accuracy of the terminal pose of solar sails decreases with the increase of hinge clearance, while the flexibility directly leads to the error in the expansion of solar sails. However, when the two are coupled, the effect of clearance on the accuracy of terminal pose can be compensated. The developed prototype of the expandable mechanism was used to test the solar wing deployment performance and the accuracy of repeated deployment positioning. The experimental results verified rational design of the hinge joint clearance, and the coupling effect of the flexibility of windsurfing and hinge clearance can compensate for the windsurfing repeatedly deployed end position error. Reasonably matching the two factors within the allowable error range can make the hinge gap value have a larger desirable range, which is beneficial for improving the positioning accuracy of the mechanism.