Abstract The inflatable folded membrane structure is mainly made of flexible materials, so it has the advantages of simple structure, high folding efficiency, small launch volume, light weight, low production cost, and high reliable, and it has broad application prospects in large space structures such as space antennas, solar panels. In order to overcome the shortcoming that the traditional constant rate inflation cannot take into account the folded structure development time and stability at the same time, this paper proposes a method of variable inflation rate, which combines the inflation rate with the optimal control, so that the folded structure can deploy quickly and stably. The paper uses extended position-based dynamics method (XPBD) and control volume (CV) method to establish the inflatable folded membrane structure simulation system, and derive its instantaneous optimal control expression with inflation rate as control variable. The simulation of the four-fold tube and the comparison with the constant inflation rate show that the present method is more stable and less kinetic energy than the fast inflation rate, and takes less time than the slow inflation rate. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm for complex folded inflatable structure, the paper uses origami to design a sunshield model and simulate the deployment process.

Highlights • A variable inflation rate control method is proposed for inflatable folded structures. • XPBD and CV methods are employed for simulation system. • The inflatable folded structures can deploy quickly and stably. • The proposed method has been tested for complex inflatable folded structures.