Solid freeform fabrication is particularly suitable for fabricating customized parts, but it has not been used for fabricating deployable structures that can be stored in a compact configuration and deployed quickly and easily in the field. In previous work, lattice structures have been established as a feasible means of deploying parts. Before fabricating the parts with a selective laser sintering (SLS) machine and Duraform® Flex material, lattice sub-skins are added strategically beneath the

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... urface of the part. The lattice structure provides elastic energy for folding and deploying the structure or constrains expansion upon application of internal air pressure. In this paper, a procedure is presented for optimizing the lattice skin topology for improved overall performance of the structure, measured in terms of deviation from desired surface profile. A ground structure-based topology optimization procedure is utilized, with a penalization scheme that encourages convergence to sets of thick lattice elements that are manufacturable and extremely thin lattice elements that are removed from the final structure. A deployable wing is designed for a miniature unmanned aerial vehicle. A physical prototype of the optimal configuration is fabricated with SLS and compared with the virtual prototype.