Dexterous manipulation of origami cartons with robotic fingers based on the interactive configuration space

This paper investigates the equivalent mechanism structure of origami cartons and for the first time proposes a quantitative model of cartons and the interactive configuration space for folding origami cartons. With an analysis of the equivalent mechanism, gusset vertexes of cartons are investigated based on their equivalent spherical linkages and identified as guiding linkages that determine folding. Having established a kinematics model, a configuration control vector is characterized to control carton manipulation. The information of this configuration control vector is passed to the tip of a robotic finger and the finger configuration space is hence identified. The paper further introduces configuration transformation and creates a carton interactive configuration space, leading to generating trajectories of all four configuration control vectors and, subsequently, to finger operation trajectories. This results in making use of four robotic fingers for folding origami cartons. The interactive technique is further used for final tucking carton flaps. A novel rig with robotic fingers is then presented to demonstrate the principle and concept.