A reconfigurable interactive interface for controlling robotic origami in virtual environments

Abstract

Origami shape transformation is dictated by predefined folding patterns and their folding sequence. The working principle of robotic origami is based on the same principle: we design quasi-2D tiles and connecting hinges and define and program their folding sequences. Since the tiles are often of uniform shape and size, their final configuration is governed by the kinematic relationship. Mathematicians, computer scientists and even architects have studied a wide range of origami algorithms. However, for multiple shape transformations, the origami design parameters and consequently sequence planning become more challenging. In this work, we present a reconfigurable interactive interface, a physicsbased modeling control interface to explore the design space of origami robots. We developed two interactive modes for proof of concept of a bidirectional communication interface between virtual and physical environments. The first interaction mode is origami-inspired, foldable surfaces with distributed sensors that can recreate folding sequences and shape transformations in a virtual environment via hardware-in-loop simulation. Its complementary digital transcription lays the foundation for a robotic origami design tool that provides visual representation of various design formulations as well as an intuitive controller for robotic origami. In the second interaction mode, we construct a physics-based modeling interface for intuitive user manipulation of robotic origami in a virtual environment. Algorithms for graphical representation and command transformation were developed for robotic interaction. Lastly, we tested the efficacy of the algorithms on prototypes to discover the applications and capacities of the reconfigurable interactive interface.

A Framework for Taxonomy and Evaluation of Self-Reconfigurable Robotic Systems

“…2 Note that in Fig. 13, the self-reconfigurable robots references are as ''Self folding machine'' [99], ''Reconfigurable origami robot'' [61], ''Soft-Cube'' [80], ''Miniature origami robot'' [100]. Note that the ''SoftCube'' [80], has very high inter-reconfigurability as more than 500 modules were shown to be serially connected which resulted in high achievable morphologies.…”

“…The origami robots are a recently emerging type of self-reconfigurable robots, which can shift from a folded state to an unfolded state just like the paper art, origami [61]- [63]. It is worth highlighting that the evaluation thought inherent in our proposition is that the reconfigurability of a robot is rated by the number of meaningful configurations, instead of by the articulated joints.…”

“…The XZ-plane contains the inter-reconfigurable robots, mainly Crystalline [73], Superbot [75], Roombots [76], SMORES [78] and CEBOT [71]. The XZ-plane contains the robot with intra-reconfigurability are mainly Soft Quadruped [102], Origami robot [61] and the in-house developed robot Scorpio [57], Mantis [103] and sTetro [104]. The robots having both inter-and intra-reconfigurability are Morpho [90], hTetro [47], Polybot [93], MTRAN [105] and occupies the 3D spatial location in the TAEV plot.…”

Soft Touch using Soft Pneumatic Actuator–Skin as a Wearable Haptic Feedback Device

“…To generate shapes entirely in 3D, there are several interactive interfaces based on unconventional materials and actuators, such as soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs), [22][23][24] jamming materials, [25] or shape memory materials. [26,27] Shape generation, however, is still restricted by the number of actuators, despite a few model-based designs achieving target shape with relatively small numbers of actuators. [28,29] Some wearable/handheld devices [12,13,30,31] provide an alternative solution for tangibly perceiving shapes and spatial information.…”

A mechatronic shape display based on auxetic materials

“…Swarm robots can be used also for encounter haptics as discrete shape displays 12 . A second approach to display a surface is to construct an articulated surface with hinges [13][14][15] (see Fig. 1d).…”