Skip to main content

Harvard’s folding origami robot can move without requiring battery power

Whether it’s NASA’s next-generation scout robot or this jigsaw puzzle-style modular bot project, origami robots are — to quote the 2001 movie Zoolanderso hot right now. Jumping on that folding bandwagon is an intriguing new project developed by researchers at Harvard University. What they have created are diminutive origami-inspired robots that move courtesy of a wireless electromagnetic field. For those keeping track at home, this means no bulky onboard batteries required!

“Origami-based robots are an attractive group of robots due to their simplicity,” lead researcher Mustafa Boyvat told Digital Trends. “We expect that a practical solution to their power and control issues at small scales is very helpful because batteries bring limitations at those scales.”

Recommended Videos

The robots the researchers have developed do not look like what you might immediately think of as a robot. They are flat, thin plastic tetrahedrons; consisting of three outside triangles which connect to a central triangle — sporting a circuit board — by way of a hinge. This hinge is attached to coils made of a metallic material called shape-memory alloy (SMA), that is able to contract like a muscle when a current passes through it.

As nifty as the individual robots are, however, it is when these individual “muscles” are combined to form larger limbs that the really interesting uses are achieved. For example, the Harvard team demonstrated its new origami robots by combining separate origami “joints” to form a small robotic arm — able to bend left and right, while also opening and closing a gripper. The arm’s movement could be controlled by changing the frequency of the external magnetic field.

Wyss Institute at Harvard University
Wyss Institute at Harvard University

While the project is still in the research stages, over the long term, the team hopes the robots can be used in the medical field. “It is expected that this technology can be used in biomedical applications in future by enabling small scale, wirelessly powered and controlled medical tools,” Boyvat said.

One possible uses would be as a swallowable micro-robot that might be used by surgeons as an alternative to an uncomfortable endoscope. One inside a person’s body, the robot could perform simple tasks such as filming, while being controlled from the outside.

This is not the first time that we have come across a similar idea for ingestible robots. This time last year, we covered a project coming out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with the goal of creating ingestible origami robots capable of patching wounds, dislodging foreign objects, or even potentially carrying out micro surgery on soft tissue.

We think it is fair to say that when you have both Harvard and MIT working to develop the same technology, there is probably something pretty interesting about it!

A paper describing the Harvard work was recently published in the journal Science Robotics.

Luke Dormehl
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Tiny robot can be made to ‘walk’ using pulsed laser beams
Laser microbot

Computer chips morph into tiny robots with medical applications

A breakthrough robot can be made to walk by charging up its legs with pulsed laser beams, allowing it to move without the need for an onboard battery. Unfortunately, you’ll probably never get to see it with your own eyes.

Read more
Giving robots a layer of fat could help supercharge their battery life
BYU's Robot King Louie being built by NASA

Structural, rechargeable zinc battery

Robots could be on course to get fatter -- and it’s for their own good. In an effort to solve one of the biggest problems in current robotics, a lack of battery life, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new rechargeable zinc battery that could be worn around robots like a layer of fat. This could provide them with up to 72 times more power capacity than they get from today’s commonly used lithium-ion batteries.

Read more
Zoox recalls robotaxis after Las Vegas crash, citing software fix
zoox recall crash 1739252352 robotaxi side profile in dark mode

Amazon's self-driving vehicle unit, Zoox, has issued a voluntary safety recall after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a minor collision in Las Vegas. The incident, which occurred in April 2025, led the company to investigate and identify a software issue affecting how the robotaxi anticipates another vehicle’s path.
The recall, affecting 270 Zoox-built vehicles, was formally filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Zoox said the issue has already been addressed through a software update that was remotely deployed to its fleet.
Zoox’s robotaxis, which operate without driving controls like a steering wheel or pedals, are part of Amazon’s entry into the autonomous driving space. According to Zoox’s safety recall report, the vehicle failed to yield to oncoming traffic while making an unprotected left turn, leading to a low-speed collision with a regular passenger car. While damage was minor, the event raised flags about the system’s behavior in complex urban scenarios.
Establishing safety and reliability remain key factors in the deployment of the relatively new autonomous ride-hailing technology. Alphabet-owned Waymo continues to lead the sector in both safety and operational scale, with services active in multiple cities including Phoenix and San Francisco. But GM’s Cruise and Ford/VW-backed Argo AI were forced to abandon operations over the past few years.
Tesla is also expected to enter the robotaxi race with the launch of its own service in June 2025, leveraging its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. While FSD has faced heavy regulatory scrutiny through last year, safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration.
Zoox, which Amazon acquired in 2020, says it issued the recall voluntarily as part of its commitment to safety. “It’s essential that we remain transparent about our processes and the collective decisions we make,” the company said in a statement.

Read more