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A portable three-degrees-of-freedom force feedback origami robot for human–robot interactions

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 1, pages 584–593 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Haptic interfaces can recreate the experience of touch and are necessary to improve human–robot interactions. However, at present, haptic interfaces are either electromechanical devices eliciting very limited touch sensations or devices that may provide more comprehensive kinesthetic cues but at the cost of their large volume: there is a clear trade-off between the richness of feedback and the device size. The design and manufacturing challenges in creating complex touch sensations from compact platforms still need to be solved. To overcome the physical limitation of miniaturizing force feedback robots, we adapted origami design principles to achieve portability, accuracy and scalable manufacturing. The result is Foldaway, a foldable origami robot that can render three-degrees-of-freedom force feedback in a compact platform that can fit in a pocket. This robotic platform can track the movement of the user’s fingers, apply a force of up to 2 newtons and render stiffness up to 1.2 newtons per millimetre. We experimented with different human–machine interactions to demonstrate the broad applicability of Foldaway prototypes: a portable interface for the haptic exploration of an anatomy atlas; a handheld joystick for interacting with virtual objects; and a bimanual controller for intuitive and safe teleoperation of drones.

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Fig. 1: Foldaway haptic interfaces.
Fig. 2: Design of Foldaway haptic interfaces.
Fig. 3: Manufacture of Foldaway-Pushbutton origami mechanism.
Fig. 4: Result of force rendering and bandwidth tests of Foldaway prototypes.
Fig. 5: Haptic interface for exploration of images with haptic content.
Fig. 6: Pushbutton for interaction with objects in VR.
Fig. 7: A twin Pushbutton controller with force feedback for drone piloting.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The data collected during experiment with users can be downloaded from http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2647727.

Code availability

The code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank F. Conti for the suggestions and feedback on Foldaway applications. This study was supported by the SNSF through the National Center of Competence in Research Robotics, and through the Swiss National Science Foundation and Innosuisse Bridge grant number 20B1-1_181840.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Stefano Mintchev, Marco Salerno.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Stefano Mintchev, Marco Salerno, Alexandre Cherpillod, Simone Scaduto & Jamie Paik

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  1. Stefano Mintchev
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  2. Marco Salerno
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  4. Simone Scaduto
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  5. Jamie Paik
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Contributions

S.M. and M.S. developed the concept. S.M., M.S. and S.S. fabricated the experimental samples of the interfaces. M.S., A.C. and S.S. developed the electronics and the low- and high-level control software for the interfaces. S.M. and M.S. designed the experiments. M.S., A.C. and S.S. performed the characterization of the interfaces. A.C. and S.M. collected the user data. S.M., M.S. and J.P. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefano Mintchev.

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Supplementary information

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Reporting Summary

Supplementary Video 1

A portable 3-DoF force feedback origami robot for human-robot interactions.

Supplementary Video 2

Haptic interface for exploration of images with haptic content.

Supplementary Video 3

Pushbutton for interaction with objects in VR.

Supplementary Video 4

A twin Pushbutton controller with force feedback for drone piloting.

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Mintchev, S., Salerno, M., Cherpillod, A. et al. A portable three-degrees-of-freedom force feedback origami robot for human–robot interactions. Nat Mach Intell 1, 584–593 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0125-1

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