‘Metabots’ Shapeshift From Flat Sheets Into Hundreds of highly adaptive and maneuverable Structures

Amazing stuff!

"Researchers have created a class of robots made from thin sheets of material that can snap into hundreds of stable shapes – allowing them to execute a wide variety of actions despite the fact that they have no motor and are made of a single, flat material. These “metabots” essentially resemble animated sheets of plastic, capable of moving around a surface or grasping objects. ...

“By connecting multiple sheets, we create structures that lie flat initially, but can then bend and fold themselves into a wide variety of stable configurations,” ...

“The robots can change their shape and gait to adapt to different terrains or to perform a variety of functions, such as gripping and lifting objects,” ..."

From the abstract:

"Multistable metastructures can switch between multiple stable configurations without requiring locking forces. However, their potential for creating reconfigurable robots—metabots—capable of adapting to changing environments remains largely unexplored.

Here, we report harnessing developable surface–based multistable thin-shell metastructures with high reconfigurability for adaptive manipulation and locomotion.

These multistable metastructures are constructed by cutting and bonding thin polymer sheets with patterned cutouts, enabling programmable prestored elastic energy. A single unit achieves up to 20 stable configurations, while a four-unit assembly yields 256 reconfigured states, through simple folding of dynamic virtual creases.

When integrated with thin sheet–based, multiresponsive soft actuators, these metastructures become highly adaptive metabots, including universal, noninvasive bistable soft grippers; magnetic multigait jumpers; and dual-responsive crawlers powered by magnetic and electroactive actuation.

These systems exhibit high adaptability and maneuverability, capable of navigating complex terrains and confined environments via on-demand shape transformations, paving the way for energy-efficient, reconfigurable soft robotic platforms."

‘Metabots’ Shapeshift From Flat Sheets Into Hundreds of Structures | Office of Research and Innovation

Multistable thin-shell metastructures for multiresponsive reconfigurable metabots (open access)

Fig. 1. High shape-shifting efficient multistable shell metastructures and their multifunctional robotic applications.

Fig. 3. Shape transformation through local folding of dynamic virtual creases in the developable thin-shell unit cell.

Fig. 5. Applications in universal noninvasive bistable grippers.

Fig. 6. Applications in an adaptive magnetic multigait jumper and crawler via shape transformation.