A Robotic Origami System toward Automatic Folding of Paper Cranes

Abstract

We are developing a robot system that can automatically fold “Orizuru,” a paper crane. It uses a cutting plotter to add creases on papers to make them easily-foldable. The development diagram of the paper crane for the crease pattern is generated by our origami simulator. Two robots grasp dedicated tools to fold the papers. The base on which a paper is placed has several suction pads to fix the papers, and the pads are selectively turned on and off to support each of the folding processes. Most of the processes of folding Orizuru, including techniques like “squash-folding” and “petal-folding” were achieved automatically using 150mm square origami papers.