Fold Walker: An Origami‐Inspired Quadruped Robot for Multipattern Locomotion and Object Grasping

Quadruped robots are widely used for exploring unknown terrains due to their biomimetic characteristics and high flexibility. To accomplish more complex tasks and better adapt to dynamic environments, recent studies have increasingly focused on quadruped robots with configurable shapes and adaptable motion patterns. Motivated by this concept, this article presents a novel quadruped robot, the Fold Walker, which features an origami‐inspired leg design that supports a variety of motion patterns. With each leg containing two rotational folds, the robot can transform from a flat 2D configuration into complex 3D poses, which enable flexible walking on flat surfaces and stable crawling on uneven terrains. When navigating through narrow channels, the robot can also reduce its body width by changing its motion pattern. Additionally, it can transform its leg shapes to grasp objects while walking. Moreover, the origami‐inspired trunk and legs of Fold Walker can be one‐shot 3D printed as a unified, rigid link‐based structure, greatly simplifying the assembly process. Finally, experiments are also carried out, successfully verifying the robot's multifunctional performance and its adaptability to complex environments.