The recent resurgence of global interest in space exploration, driven by expanding commercial markets, lunar and planetary missions, and satellite constellations, has significantly increased the demand for compact, lightweight, and high-performance deployable structures. Among them, deployable booms are receiving growing attention for their essential role in deploying antennas, solar sails, and robotic instruments in space environments.

This study presents an origami-inspired boom that is both curvature tunable and self-locking, with the locking mechanism fully embedded within the facets of a Miura origami pattern. While prior research has addressed tunable curvature in origami structures, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that achieves both programmable curvature and self-locking behavior in a single, component-free configuration. Our design eliminates the need for additional locking parts, offering structural rigidity, design flexibility, and compact stowability within a unified geometric framework. 

Specifically, we propose a kirigami-based facet-embedded mechanism that activates during deployment to form transverse locking beams, significantly enhancing stiffness in both compression and bending modes. Experimental and analytical results demonstrate improvements of up to 6.29 times in compression stiffness and 3.5 times in bending stiffness, without any increase in stowed volume. Furthermore, a prototype deployable shelter frame confirms the scalability and robustness of the system, achieving full deployment in under six seconds with a volume reduction ratio of over seventy to one.

S.-J. Park, S.-J. Lee, G.-P. Jung*, and D.-Y. Lee*, "A Curvature-Tunable Deployable Origami Boom with Facet-Integrated Self-Locking Mechanism," Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 148, no. 5, art. no. 053301, May 2026.