Soft origami robot bends and twists in mazes
A soft robot that bends and twists through mazes has been developed by engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University using origami and modern materials science.
Soft robots can be challenging to guide because steering equipment often increases the robot’s rigidity. The new design builds the steering system directly into the robot’s body, said Tuo Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton. The team’s research is detailed in PNAS.
The researchers created the robot out of modular, cylindrical segments that can operate independently or join to form a longer unit, all of which contribute to the robot’s ability to move and steer.
Zhao said the robot’s ability to assemble and split up on the move allows the system to work as a single robot or a swarm.
“Each segment can be an individual unit, and they can communicate with each other and assemble on command,” he said in a statement. “They can separate easily, and we use magnets to connect them.”
Zhao works in Glaucio Paulino’s lab in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Princeton Materials Institute.
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