Multi-degree-of-freedom electrohydraulic origami actuator for highly dynamic shape morphing and robot locomotion

Active origami enabled by soft actuation has demonstrated excellent shape morphing and reconfiguration capability and unleashed great potential in many fields. However, available active origami structures or actuators usually have limited strain and speed, provide few active degrees of freedom or flexibility. Here, we report a multi-degree-of-freedom electrohydraulic origami (EHO) actuator with lightweight, high dynamic performance, flexibility and multi-functionality. We have achieved ultra large actuation strain (3300%) and strain rate (over 23500 % s ^-1 ) for the actuators, and constructed various types of active deployable structures with programmable and rapid shape morphing controlled by the extension, rotation, translation folding or actuation modes of the actuator units. We also demonstrate three origami robots with high-speed bidirectional sliding, multi-directional jumping and crawling respectively based on the reconfiguration and shape morphing of the active origami structures. This study may accelerate the development and application of active origami towards high-speed and agile robotics.