Over the past few decades, the centuries-old art of origami and the centuries-old practice of engineering have been mixing in ways that have proven to be both fruitful and surprising, resulting in structures and mechanisms that fold, deploy, and transform. While the term “origami” captures the general sense of these forms, it should be interpreted broadly, as folding, in which multiple components rotate with respect to one another around reasonably well-defined axes of rotation: the “folds.” Unlike traditional origami (mostly paper), origami mechanisms are made from the materials of engineering: metals, polymers, plastics, and exotics, such as carbon fiber. The user of such mechanisms in the engineering domain requires the exploration of properties and parameters not considered in traditional origami: kinematics, effects of thickness and bending, stresses and strains, and methods of actuation far more sophisticated than the hands of a craftsman.
This special issue on folding-based mechanisms and robotics...
