Morphing surfaces inspired by thick-panel origami

Journal article

Origami, derived from the Japanese words ‘ori’ meaning fold and ‘kami (gami)’ meaning paper, has found extensive engineering applications in modern days. In the last decade, an emerging venue lies in robotics, where origami is taken as an exoskeleton of a robot to generate desired behaviours. The motions of origami are often coupled through in-built folds, leading to lower or more controllable degrees of freedom (DoFs) while still exhibiting shape-changing properties akin to those of soft materials. This unique feature enhances the compliance of robots without compromising their controllability. The prevalent use of zero-thickness sheets makes origami robots prone to fatigue, necessitating the incorporation of origami made from durable thick materials. Whilst substantial attempts have been made in the field of thick-panel origami, the concept was originally conceived for space solar panels. Hence, existing research predominantly focuses on properties such as flat foldability and kinematic equivalence. Consequently, many designs also end up with rigid panels of non-uniform thicknesses, complicating the fabrication process. As a result, roboticists, who are interested in shape-changing origami as well as its fabrication and control simplicity, often find it challenging to directly implement those thick panels in the robotic design. This work addresses these research gaps by introducing the first systematic approach to designing uniform-thickness origami capable of shape-changing, referred to as morphing surfaces. Such surfaces are enabled by a comprehensive mapping between thick-panel origami and spatial overconstrained linkages, followed by various tessellation methods. Bending, expanding, twisting, and complex motion behaviours will be realised on the proposed surfaces, all with a single DoF. The surfaces are thus readily applicable in robotics for targeted functions.

Authors: Liu, C; Yang, F; Maiolino, P; You, Z

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: International Journal of Mechanical Sciences
• Volume: 289
• Article number: 109976
• Publication date: 2025-02-13
• Acceptance date: 2025-01-12
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2025.109976
• EISSN: 1879-2162
• ISSN: 0020-7403
• Language: English
• Keywords: thick-panel origami; uniform thickness; programmable shape-changing; spatial overconstrained linkage; kinematic mapping and analysis; origami tessellation