Patent 11852210 was granted and assigned to Brigham Young University on December, 2023 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A lamina emergent torsional (LET) joint that includes an integrated membrane to reduce, or eliminate, certain unwanted motions and/or displacements associated with the operation of the LET joint is disclosed. The membrane-integrated LET joint (i.e., M-LET) can be used as a hinge for a lamina emergent mechanism and/or as a surrogate fold for an origami application to ensure accurate and repeatable transitions from a planar (i.e., lamina) state to a non-planar (i.e., lamina-emergent) state, and vice versa.