Waldron linkage-inspired deployable cylindrical mechanisms with smooth surfaces

•Propose a general method to construct cylindrical mechanisms with smooth surfaces.•Innovative design of a cylindrical unit using plane-symmetric Waldron linkages.•Establish a constraint model for networking units along directrix and generatrix.•Optimization design of parameters to maximize the deployment ratio.•Developed prototype has a smooth cylindrical surface with relatively high precision. Deployable mechanisms with solid surfaces, which possess the advantage of high accuracy, have great potential in engineering applications. This paper proposes a design method to construct a deployable cylindrical mechanism with smooth solid surfaces based on Waldron hybrid linkage. Joints above the desired surface are replaced by remote central mechanisms. The equivalence of joints ensures the surface smooth and keeps the motion characteristics unchanged. A largescale deployable mechanism is obtained by networking the proposed units along axial and radial directions, while the characteristics of 1-DOF, smooth surface, and compact folding remain. A correlation model is established to describe the relationship among design parameters. A design method is proposed to obtain the optimal mechanism parameters for constructing various types of cylindrical surfaces with maximum deployment ratio. Three cases of a circular cylindrical surface, a parabolic cylindrical surface and an elliptical cylindrical surface are developed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the deployment function and precision tests of the prototype. [Display omitted]