The application of origami structures in soft grippers: recent advances

Abstract

Abstract Soft robotics has attracted increasing attention in recent decades, among which soft robotic grippers are one of the most popular research areas. Origami, the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, has been regarded as promising in the design of soft grippers, because its stimuli-responsive folding enables adaptive grasping. However, currently there lacks a systematic review that can guide designers through the entire process of designing an origami gripper, including origami pattern selection, actuation strategies, and fabrication methods. This review comprehensively analyzes these design stages by reviewing recent advances and illustrates the interrelationships between them. We first introduce the basic concepts of soft robotics, soft grippers, and origami, together with their application in engineering. We then establish a link between fundamental origami patterns, namely Miura, Yoshimura, Waterbomb, and Kresling, and their intrinsic kinematic advantages and limitations. Subsequently, we analyze how different actuation strategies and fabrication methods can exploit these inherent advantages or mitigate the potential limitations. Finally, we elaborate a few universal challenges, including sealing, crease fatigue, and control complexity, that currently hinder the development of the field and propose future paths involving material intelligence and machine learning that can unlock these limitations. Therefore, this review can serve as a framework that guides designers to develop the next generation of high-performance origami-inspired grippers.