Related papers: Tailoring materials into kirigami robots
Origami is the archetype of a structural material with unusual mechanical properties that arise almost exclusively from the geometry of its constituent folds and forms the basis for mechanical metamaterials with an extreme deformation…
Origami describes rules for creating folded structures from patterns on a flat sheet, but does not prescribe how patterns can be designed to fit target shapes. Here, starting from the simplest periodic origami pattern that yields one…
To design a general-purpose assembly robot system that can handle objects of various shapes, we propose a soft jig that fits to the shapes of assembly parts. The functionality of the soft jig is based on a jamming gripper developed in the…
An underdeveloped capability in soft robotics is proprioceptive feedback control, where soft actuators can be sensed and controlled using only sensors on the robot's body. Additionally, soft actuators are often unable to support human-scale…
Origami, which transforms flat sheets into three-dimensional shapes through folding patterns, has inspired the emergence of deployable systems in architecture and civil realms. Most existing origami-inspired deployable systems are based on…
Robotic manipulators often face challenges in handling objects of different sizes and materials, limiting their effectiveness in practical applications. This issue is particularly pronounced when manipulating meter-scale objects or those…
Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) has transformed gastrointestinal (GI) diagnostics by enabling noninvasive visualization of the digestive tract, yet its diagnostic yield remains constrained by the absence of biopsy capability, as…
Current architectured cellular cushion materials rely mainly on damage and/or unpredictable collapse of their unit cells to absorb and dissipate energy under impact. This prevents shape recovery and produces undesirable force fluctuations…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting on precisely-targeted cells in biological tissues. Some tasks may benefit from robots that change shape, such as elongating to improve chemical gradient…
Many organisms leverage an interplay between shape and activity to generate motion and adapt to their environment. Embedding such feedback into synthetic microrobots could eliminate the need for sensors, software, and actuators, yet current…
Origami-inspired robots offer rapid, accessible design and manufacture with diverse functionalities. In particular, origami robots without conventional electronics have the unique advantage of functioning in extreme environments such as…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with…
Digital coding metasurfaces have revolutionized electromagnetic (EM) manipulation, yet typical tunable approaches based on active components suffer from the "volatility" bottleneck. While mechanical modulation provides a potential solution,…
There is a growing need for robots that can change their shape, size and mechanical properties to adapt to evolving tasks and environments. However, current shape-changing systems generally utilize bespoke, system-specific mechanisms that…
Adhering to current HRI paradigms, all of the sensors, visualisation and legibility of actions and motions are borne by the robot or its working cell. This necessarily makes robots more complex or confines them into specialised, structured…
Miura-Ori, a celebrated origami pattern that facilitates functionality in matter, has found multiple applications in the field of mechanical metamaterials. Modifications of Miura-Ori pattern can produce curved configurations during folding,…
Non-Euclidean surfaces are ubiquitous in numerous engineering fields, such as automotive, aerospace, and biomedical engineering domains. Morphing origami has numerous potential engineering applications, including soft robots, mechanical…
Origami principles are used to create strong, lightweight structures with complex mechanical response. However, identifying the fundamental physical principles that determine a sheet's behavior remains a challenge. We introduce a new…
Evolutionary algorithms offer great promise for the automatic design of robot bodies, tailoring them to specific environments or tasks. Most research is done on simplified models or virtual robots in physics simulators, which do not capture…