Metamaterial from Origami Engineering

Abstract

With the declining birthrate, aging population, and diversification of work styles, robot technology that covers the physical abilities of the elderly and women is required. An actuator using an origami structure developed in recent years has been applied as a high-efficiency artificial muscle suitable for ultralight flexible robots with high human affinity. We fabricated a robot with 4 degrees of freedom using an actuator that expands and contracts the origami structure of non-inverting spiral fold by pneumatic pressure, and confirmed that basically the desired operation can be obtained.