Miniaturised origami-inspired robot has microassembly potential

Inspired by pop-up books and origami a team at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has developed a micro-fabrication approach that enables the assembly of robots from flat sheets of composite materials.

Pop-up MEMS (microelectromechanical system) manufacturing creates dynamic centimeter-scale machines that can simply walk or fly away. The researchers applied their approach to develop a Delta robot measuring a mere 15 mm-by-15 mm-by-20 mm.

Because of their high precision and speed, Delta robots are deployed in many industrial processes, including pick-and-place assemblies, machining, welding and packaging. Over time, roboticists have designed smaller and smaller Delta robots for tasks in limited workspaces, yet shrinking them further to the millimeter scale with conventional manufacturing techniques and components has proven fruitless. The team has integrated its microfabrication technique with multi-functional composite materials to create the 'milliDelta robot,' which can operate with high speed, force, and micrometer precision, opening potential applications for it in micromanipulation tasks in manufacturing and medicine.

The team demonstrated that the milliDelta can operate in a workspace of about seven cubic millimeters and that it can apply forces and exhibit trajectories that, together with its high frequencies, could make it ideal for micromanipulations in industrial pick-and-place processes and microscopic surgeries such as retinal microsurgeries performed on the human eye.