Departmental Papers (ESE)

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Abstract

Origami processes can generate both rigid and compliant structures from the same homogeneous sheet material. In this article, we advance the origami robotics literature by showing that it is possible to construct an arbitrary rigid kinematic chain with prescribed joint compliance from a single tubular sheet. Our “Kinegami” algorithm converts a Denavit–Hartenberg specification into a single-sheet crease pattern for an equivalent serial robot mechanism by composing origami modules from a catalogue. The algorithm arises from the key observation that tubular origami linkage design reduces to a Dubins path planning problem. The automatically generated structural connections and movable joints that realize the specified design can also be endowed with independent user-specified compliance. We apply the Kinegami algorithm to a number of common robot mechanisms and hand-fold their algorithmically generated single-sheet crease patterns into functioning kinematic chains. We believe this is the first completely automated end-to-end system for converting an abstract manipulator specification into a physically realizable origami design that requires no additional human input.

Sponsor Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Army Research Office under the SLICE Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives Program award under Grant W911NF1810327 and in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant 1845339.

Document Type

Journal Article

Subject Area

GRASP, Kodlab

Date of this Version

10-12-2022

Publication Source

IEEE Transaction on Robotics

DOI

10.1109/TRO.2022.3206711

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Keywords

Dubins path, kinematic synthesis, origami robot, programmable compliance

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Date Posted: 17 October 2022

This document has been peer reviewed.