An Albuca namaquensis Baker inspired origami robot driven by the magnetic field

Abstract

Magnetic origami robots have attracted tremendous attention in flexible grasping, wearable devices and biomedical care, due to the extreme deformation characteristics stemming from the origami technique, which endows the robots diverse locomotion capabilities such as rolling, crawling and jumping. However, specific challenging motion patterns such as jumping and walking up or down stairs are still difficult to be achieved by existing soft robots. In the present study, an Albuca namaquensis Baker inspired origami robot (AnB robot) is developed by introducing the classical helical construction in the origami technique under the actuation of the magnet. Firstly, the folding process of the Albuca namaquensis Baker structure is elaborated as well as the adhesion strategy of the NdFeB discs. Next, the tensile and bending experiments are carried out to demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed origami structure. In what follows, the typical motion such as walking down the stairs is performed and the mechanical model is given to depict the motion process. Finally, more challenging motion patterns including rolling and climbing the stairs are exhibited. It shows that the proposed AnB robot can achieve movements such as descending stairs by gravity, overcoming gravity to climb stairs, and rolling on flat ground which also holds implications in many engineering areas to realize complicated tasks. The results also shed light on the development of designing intelligent devices and novel bionic robots.