Origami for Dexterity in Miniature Manipulation and Testing

Existing methods for the manipulation and testing of miniature matter have numerous drawbacks, which limit their dexterity and inhibit broader adoption in science and engineering. They require large and complex equipment, have limited output forces, lack local sensing capability, and only have one or a few degrees of freedom for active motion. To address these issues, this project will explore micro-origami with multiple active degrees of freedom to create low-cost and customizable systems for versatile motion, sensing, and dexterous manipulation.

These miniature manipulators can be readily adopted for various applications such as extraction and testing of organic cells, micro-system packaging, testing of friction between granular particles, and micro-robotic arms. The improved versatility and low-cost of these systems will make them widely accessible and allow for mass fabrication of numerous devices to statistically test many samples or for application within robotic swarms.

Additionally, this award will support outreach and educational efforts, including introducing middle-school girls to engineering and micro-manipulators through a summer program; creating curricula on origami inspired manipulators for a graduate course; and establishing research and mentoring opportunities for underrepresented transfer students.

The project will establish an integrated methodology for the fabrication, analysis, design, sensing, and control of micro-origami systems with advanced dexterity for miniature manipulation and testing. Material systems will be identified, and fabrication processes will be established to create electro-thermally active origami at scales ranging from 10µm to 1mm.

Testing of the systems will give insight to their mechanical performance, reliability, and responsiveness. Micro-origami with increasingly complex motions will be fabricated and investigated to give insight to practical challenges such as packaging, circuits, and dimensional limits of the manipulators. Simplified static and dynamic analytical models will be created to simulate the electro-thermo-mechanical coupling that occurs due to the large angle actuation of the micro-origami.

The models will be validated with experimental tests and high-fidelity simulations and used to create an optimization framework that will guide the design of micro-origami for specific tasks in the manipulation of physical matter. Design and fabrication methods will be explored to embed piezoresistive- and optic-based displacement sensors within the micro-origami.

On-chip and off-chip measurements will be synthesized to permit for real-time feedback control and estimation of the forces acting on the manipulators by their surroundings or payloads. Testing the micro-origami systems will give insight to the error and repeatability of open- and closed-loop control that would enable dexterous micro-manipulation and testing.

This project is supported by the cross-directorate Foundational Research in Robotics program, jointly managed and funded by the Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.