Rigid-flexible coupled origami robots via multimaterial 3D printing

Abstract Soft robots have significant advantages in flexibility and adaptability and have potential applications in the field of engineering. Unlike traditional manufacturing methods, three-dimensional (3D) printing provides a fast way to fabricate customized and multi-functional robots. However, the fabrication of soft robots requires multimaterial printers and the high-accuracy multi-step assembly process. Among them, fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology has taken the lead compared to other 3D printing methods due to its ease of use, accuracy, and repeatability. However, the FDM multimaterial printing has not been thoroughly explored. Here, we proposed a rigid and flexible material integrated printing approach based on FDM 3D printing technology and reported a cable-driven flexible pipe robot based on Yoshimura origami crease patterns. The implementations show that the robot can realize four-direction bending effectively by the corresponding drive control, which indicates the feasibility of our design and manufacturing method. The proposed approach paves an effective way to design and fabricate the rigid-flexible robot and other devices in the future.