文章基本信息

标题：An Origami Flexiball-Inspired Metamaterial Actuator and Its In-Pipe Robot Prototype
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作者：Fuwen Hu ; Tian Li
期刊名称：Actuators
电子版ISSN：2076-0825
出版年度：2021
卷号：10
期号：4
页码：67
DOI：10.3390/act10040067
出版社：MDPI Publishing
摘要：Usually, polyhedra are viewed as the underlying constructive cells of packing or tilling in many disciplines, including crystallography, protein folding, viruses structure, building architecture, etc. Here, inspired by the flexible origami polyhedra (commonly called origami flexiballs), we initially probe into their intrinsic metamaterial properties and robotized methods from fabrication to actuation. Firstly, the topology, geometries and elastic energies of shape shifting are analyzed for the three kinds of origami flexiballs with extruded outward rhombic faces. Provably, they meet the definitions of reconfigurable and transformable metamaterials with switchable stiffness and multiple degrees of freedom. Secondly, a new type of soft actuator with rhombic deformations is successfully put forward, different from soft bionic deformations like elongating, contracting, bending, twisting, spiraling, etc. Further, we redesign and fabricate the three-dimensional (3D) printable structures of origami flexiballs considering their 3D printability and foldability, and magnetically actuated them through the attachment of magnetoactive elastomer. Lastly, a fully soft in-pipe robot prototype is presented using the origami flexiball as an applicable attempt. Experimental work clearly suggests that the presented origami flexiball robot has good adaptability to various pipe sizes, and also can be easily expanded to different scales, or reconfigured into more complex metastructures by assembly. In conclusion, this research provides a newly interesting and illuminating member for the emerging families of mechanical metamaterials, soft actuators and soft robots.
关键词：origami; polyhedra; metamaterial; soft robot; soft actuator; 3D printing origami ; polyhedra ; metamaterial ; soft robot ; soft actuator ; 3D printing