Origami Robots

This chapter discusses origami robotics, that is, robots that are fabricated as 2D sheets and folded into their 3D form. Folding is an elegant solution to assembly wherein thin sheets morph to produce a wide variety of structures with complex geometry, kinematics, and mechanical response. By incorporating actuators, sensing, and computation directly into the sheet, full robots can be fabricated, self-assembled, and deployed in a single uniform process. Moving joints are fabricated in exactly the same way as static, structural elements, opening opportunities for end-to-end manufacturing of multi-functional robotic devices with fully embedded behaviors and control. We discuss methods for modeling, designing, controlling, and fabricating origami robots, and we highlight how these principles have been applied in a wide variety of applications, including manipulation, locomotion, self-reconfiguration, and human-robot interaction.