Related papers: Origami spring-inspired shape morphing for flexibl…

Morphing surfaces provide a versatile tool to advance the functionalities of high-performance aircraft, soft robots, biomedical devices, and human-machine interfaces. However, achieving precise shape transformation and mechanical property…

One-dimensional slender bodies can be deformed or shaped into spatially complex curves relatively easily due to their inherent compliance. However, traditional methods of fabricating complex spatial shapes are cumbersome, prone to error…

Serially connected robots are promising candidates for performing tasks in confined spaces such as search-and-rescue in large-scale disasters. Such robots are typically limbless, and we hypothesize that the addition of limbs could improve…

As we enter the age of designer matter - where objects can morph and change shape on command - what tools do we need to create shape-shifting structures? At the heart of an elastic deformation is the combination of dilation and distortion,…

If robots are to become ubiquitous, they will need to be able to adapt to complex and dynamic environments. Robots that can adapt their bodies while deployed might be flexible and robust enough to meet this challenge. Previous work on…

Origami structures enabled by folding and unfolding can create complex 3D shapes. However, even a small 3D shape can have large 2D unfoldings. The huge initial dimension of the 2D flattened structure makes fabrication difficult, and defeats…

Sim-to-real transfer remains a significant challenge in soft robotics due to the unpredictability introduced by common manufacturing processes such as 3D printing and molding. These processes often result in deviations from simulated…

Traditionally, origami has been categorized into two groups according to their kinematics design: rigid and non-rigid origami. However, such categorization can be superficial, and rigid origami can obtain new mechanical properties by…

Rigid origami has shown potential in large diversity of practical applications. However, current rigid origami crease pattern design mostly relies on known tessellations. This strongly limits the diversity and novelty of patterns that can…

This paper discusses the design of a novel compliant in-pipe climbing modular robot for small diameter pipes. The robot consists of a kinematic chain of 3 OmniCrawler modules with a link connected in between 2 adjacent modules via compliant…

Thick origami structures are considered here as assemblies of polygonal panels hinged to each other along their edges according to a corresponding origami crease pattern. The determination of the internal actions caused by external loads in…

Through the implementation of reconfigurability to achieve flexibility and adaptation to tasks by morphology changes rather than by increasing the number of joints, malleable robots present advantages over traditional serial robot arms in…

As soft robot design matures, researchers have converged to sophisticated design paradigms to enable the development of more suitable platforms. Two such paradigms are soft-rigid hybrid robots, which utilize rigid structural materials in…

Robotic grasping and manipulation in underwater environments present unique challenges for robotic hands traditionally used on land. These challenges stem from dynamic water conditions, a wide range of object properties from soft to stiff,…

Kirigami offers unique opportunities for guided morphing by leveraging the geometry of the cuts. This work presents inflatable kirigami crawlers created by introducing cut patterns into heat-sealable textiles to achieve locomotion upon…

We present a simple, accessible method for autonomously transforming flat plastic sheets into intricate three-dimensional structures using only uniform heating and common tools such as household ovens and scissors. Our approach combines…

Origami as a deployable structure offers the unique advantage of achieving compact stowage via flat-folding while forming a well-defined surface composed of rigid panels upon deployment. However, since origami consists of flat facets, it is…

Magnetic response soft robot realizes programmable shape regulation with the help of magnetic field and produces various actions. The shape control of magnetic soft robot is based on the magnetic anisotropy caused by the orderly…

Flexible surfaces can modulate fluid forces through deformation, enabling passive adaptation to flow conditions. Here we show that kirigami sheets, planar surfaces patterned with arrays of parallel slits, provide a simple route to tunable…

The ancient art of origami, traditionally used to transform simple sheets into intricate objects, also holds potential for diverse engineering applications, such as shape morphing and robotics. In this study, we demonstrate that one of the…