TY - JOUR
T1 - Origami Robot
T2 - A Self-Folding Paper Robot With an Electrothermal Actuator Created by Printing
AU - Shigemune, Hiroki
AU - Maeda, Shingo
AU - Hara, Yusuke
AU - Hosoya, Naoki
AU - Hashimoto, Shuji
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was conducted as a part of the project (13L03) of the Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University, and as a part of studies at the Humanoid Robotics Institute and Future Robotics Organization, Waseda University. This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant JP16K14202 and in part by the Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow under Grant JP16J07902.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2016/12
Y1 - 2016/12
N2 - A piece of paper has many useful characteristics; it is affordable, lightweight, thin, strong, and highly absorbent. These features allow inexpensive and flexible devices to be fabricated easily and rapidly. We have proposed a new field, "paper mechatronics," which merges printed robotics and paper electronics, and to realize electronic and mechanical systems by printing. Herein, we develop a method to print an actuator and a structure on a sheet of paper. A trilayer electrothermal actuator is printed to activate a printed robot. The paper self-folds along the printed pattern to form the three-dimensional (3-D) structure of the robot body. We also investigate important factors necessary to develop a printed robot. Experiments, including finite element analysis (FEA), confirm our bimetal modeling assumption for the printed actuator and improve the locomotive ability. The key factors in self-folding are paper thickness and humidity. Our findings can improve the reliability of printed robot designs. A self-folding A7-sized paper robot demonstrates locomotion at 10 mm per step.
AB - A piece of paper has many useful characteristics; it is affordable, lightweight, thin, strong, and highly absorbent. These features allow inexpensive and flexible devices to be fabricated easily and rapidly. We have proposed a new field, "paper mechatronics," which merges printed robotics and paper electronics, and to realize electronic and mechanical systems by printing. Herein, we develop a method to print an actuator and a structure on a sheet of paper. A trilayer electrothermal actuator is printed to activate a printed robot. The paper self-folds along the printed pattern to form the three-dimensional (3-D) structure of the robot body. We also investigate important factors necessary to develop a printed robot. Experiments, including finite element analysis (FEA), confirm our bimetal modeling assumption for the printed actuator and improve the locomotive ability. The key factors in self-folding are paper thickness and humidity. Our findings can improve the reliability of printed robot designs. A self-folding A7-sized paper robot demonstrates locomotion at 10 mm per step.
KW - Flexible manufacturing systems
KW - paper electronics
KW - paper mechatronics
KW - printed robotics
KW - selffolding robots
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U2 - 10.1109/TMECH.2016.2593912
DO - 10.1109/TMECH.2016.2593912
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84996939184
SN - 1083-4435
VL - 21
SP - 2746
EP - 2754
JO - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
JF - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
IS - 6
M1 - 7519030
ER -