Variable Stiffness Folding Joints for Haptic Feedback

Origami robots composed of rigid parts with flexible joints have inherent compliance that enables deployment and reconfiguration for various shape adaptations. The major drawback of such mechanical compliance is its intrinsic softness and lack of controllability of this stiffness. In this work, we propose a design of variable stiffness origami joints to be integrated into large scale origami systems with an inner controllable joint stiffness. This novel way of controlling compliance in origami structures demonstrates that the embedded variable stiffness joint in the prototype can provide rich haptic feedback to the user through its compact, collapsible interactive platform.