Programming and controlling self-folding robots

This paper describes a robot in the form of a self-folding sheet that is capable of origami-style autonomous folding. We describe the hardware device we designed and fabricated. The device is a sheet with a box-pleated pattern and an integrated electronic substrate and actuators. The sheet is programmed and controlled to achieve different shapes using an idea called sticker programming. We describe the sticker controller and its instantiation. We also describe the algorithms for programming and controlling a given sheet to self-fold into a desired shape. Finally we present experiments with a 4×4 hardware device and an 8×8 hardware device.

Authors

• Byoungkwon An
• Daniela Rus

Keywords

• Actuators
• Shape
• Robots
• Programming
• Algorithm design and analysis
• Tiles
• Sockets
• Hardware Devices
• Control Sequence
• Complex Shapes
• 3D Shape
• Weak Connections
• Output Ports
• Input Port
• Motion-based
• Basic Shape
• Planning Algorithm
• Target Shape
• Copper Tape
• Edges Of Sheets
• Sequential Folding
• Number Of Actuators