Origami Folding by Multifingered Hands with Motion Primitives

Origami, a traditional Japanese art, is an example of superior handwork produced by human hands. Achieving such extreme dexterity is one of the goals of robotic technology. In the work described in this paper, we developed a new general-purpose robot system with sufficient capabilities for performing Origami. We decomposed the complex folding motions into simple primitives and generated the overall motion as a combination of these primitives. Also, to measure the paper deformation in real-time, we built an estimator using a physical simulator and a depth camera. As a result, our experimental system achieved consecutive valley folds and a squash fold.