Robotics and origami

Origami robots will redefine the way we design and use robots, creating customizable robots with high adaptability. The aim here is to describe innovative robotic developments based on a new family of origami structures for robots with a flexible mechanical structure that is active, reconfigurable and deformable. Origami robots can, for example, be mobile robots with multimodal locomotion and a reconfigurable structure that can roll, fly or even slide on and in their environment. The effectiveness of these robots is linked to the roboticist's ability to design, produce, model and control origami structures with integrated actuation. In particular, origami robots can be controlled by microactuators integrated into their structures. The aim here is to summarize the basis for the development of future reconfigurable and deformable robots, with the possibility of exploiting an innovative structure to enhance robotic capabilities in positioning, manipulation, flight or crossing.

As described in this article, the design and realization of origami robots is highly interdisciplinary, at the interface between several research fields such as mechanics, materials science and robotics. Origami robots are a proof-of-concept for a new class of dynamically deformable robots. To develop them, there are limits in each of the fields mentioned, as well as at their interfaces.