The 24th IFToMM China International Conference on Mechanism and Machine Science & Engineering (IFToMM CCMMS 2024) was held on August 12-14, 2024 in Tianjin, China. The conference originated in 1982 and is the most important forum held in China for the exchange of research ideas, presentation of technical and scientific achievements, and discussion of future directions in the field of mechanism/machine science and technology.
        The paper "Origami-based Reconfigurable Structures for Antenna" co-authored by Associate Research Fellow Xiao Zhang from the School of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Yu Luo from the School of Microelectronics at Tianjin University won the “Qixian” Excellent Paper Award at this conference. The first author of this paper is Minglue Liu, a master student from Motion Structure Laboratory, and the co-first author is A M. Sadiq, a PhD candidate in the School of Microelectronics.

Fig. 1 “Qixian” Excellent Paper Award

        This study proposes a design method for reconfigurable origami by using vertex-splitting, crease-duplicating, and mountain-valley-setting techniques. Two reconfigurable rigid origami patterns were successfully constructed. By applying thick-panel origami theory, corresponding kinematically equivalent thick-panel forms were designed. By introducing the kirigami technique, the reconfigurability of the two thick-panel origami patterns under different motion paths was achieved. Furthermore, a reconfigurable antenna with three beamwidth characteristics at a fixed frequency of 3.5 GHz was constructed based on one of the reconfigurable origami patterns with square panels and validated its performance through experiments. The design method of reconfigurable origami is beneficial for promoting the application of origami in multifunctional devices.

Fig. 2 (a) Two motion modes of the thick-panel form and (b) its corresponding reconfigurable antenna