Self-Building Origami Robots…

Origami robots! Yes, that is what you think it says: Origami robots! Now, while these creations may not actually be made from colourful pieces of paper, they are certainly inspired by the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding.

The team from Harvard and MIT in the US wanted to demonstrate the power of folding by developing robots that could construct themselves and move away - all without human intervention. They have published details of their creation in the journal Science .

“I am sure people have seen an example of origami; you can use folding to create fantastically complex structures,” said lead researcher Professor Robert Wood from Harvard. “But once the complexity of these things exceeds a threshold, folding them by hand becomes painstaking.”

The robots are made of flat layers of material, some of which are rigid and so hold their shape, while others are made of a shape-memory polymer that changes shape when heated. Elements are embedded between some of the layers that when heated trigger self-folding hinges, allowing the robot to build itself. These then cool down so the robot is fixed in place and doesn’t collapse.

Professor Wood explained that motors and batteries had been incorporated into the design, which is what powers it to walk after it has assembled itself. A built-in timer also enables to robot to wait 10 seconds after its batteries have been inserted to start its construction process. And to fold itself into shape and scurry off only consumes the amount of energy stored in an AA battery.

Paper co-author and grad student Sam Felton said that the design could be adapted to send a robot into space that could assemble itself once it got to the desired destination. “We could easily modify this such that the folding is triggered by an environmental sensor,” he added, “such as temperature or pressure.”

Professor Wood said that engineering robots and devices in this origami-like way could help complex object be created more simply and cheaply. “Getting a robot to assemble itself autonomously and actually perform a function has been a milestone we’ve been chasing for many years,” he enthused.

Another author on the paper, Professor Daniela Rus from MIT, agrees, saying that the origami robots will help to expand on current manufacturing capabilities, meaning that vast amounts of time won’t have to be spent on manual assembling: “Our big dream is to really make the fabrication of robots fast and inexpensive.”