Reprogrammable origami through bistable buckled hinges
Abstract
Origami structures typically have a multiplicity of folded states that are connected to a flat sheet, making the folding protocol for specific end shapes challenging to design and deploy. Here, we introduce reprogrammable origami hinges that use bistable buckled shims to reversibly control their preferred folding direction. A shim embedded across a hinge produces an asymmetric torque-angle response that favors either mountain or valley folding. Switching the shim between its two stable states reverses this response, allowing the folding direction of each hinge to be reprogrammed after fabrication. By independently controlling the states and geometries of the shims, we enable a single origami sheet to access multiple folding branches and transform into prescribed three-dimensional shapes. We further introduce self-switching hinges in which folding causes the shims to snap between their stable states. These elements allow the sheet to reprogram its folding pathway under global mechanical inputs applied to the boundaries. Our approach embeds both shape selection and transition rules directly within the mechanics of the hinges, providing a versatile framework for creating multifunctional, deployable, and reconfigurable structures.
Related
- Beyond Crease Geometry: Multistability in Origami-Inspired Structures through Local Fold Architectures
- Reprogrammable Holograms from Maskless Surface Photomorphing
- Reprogrammable polaritonic skyrmion and meron lattices based on the phase-change material In3SbTe2
- Parametric excitation of rotational soft modes of the buckled discrete elastic ring
- Controlling energy delivery with bistable nanostructures
BibTeX
@misc{kamp2026reprogrammable,
title = {{Reprogrammable origami through bistable buckled hinges}},
author = {Leon M. Kamp and Lucy Liu and Ella McRitchie and Damien Rouchouse and Orel Mazor and Davood Farhadi and L. Mahadevan and Katia Bertoldi},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.28790},
eprint = {2609.28790},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28790},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Reprogrammable origami through bistable buckled hinges
AU - Leon M. Kamp
AU - Lucy Liu
AU - Ella McRitchie
AU - Damien Rouchouse
AU - Orel Mazor
AU - Davood Farhadi
AU - L. Mahadevan
AU - Katia Bertoldi
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.28790
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.28790
AB - Origami structures typically have a multiplicity of folded states that are connected to a flat sheet, making the folding protocol for specific end shapes challenging to design and deploy. Here, we introduce reprogrammable origami hinges that use bistable buckled shims to reversibly control their preferred folding direction. A shim embedded across a hinge produces an asymmetric torque-angle response that favors either mountain or valley folding. Switching the shim between its two stable states reverses this response, allowing the folding direction of each hinge to be reprogrammed after fabrication. By independently controlling the states and geometries of the shims, we enable a single origami sheet to access multiple folding branches and transform into prescribed three-dimensional shapes. We further introduce self-switching hinges in which folding causes the shims to snap between their stable states. These elements allow the sheet to reprogram its folding pathway under global mechanical inputs applied to the boundaries. Our approach embeds both shape selection and transition rules directly within the mechanics of the hinges, providing a versatile framework for creating multifunctional, deployable, and reconfigurable structures.
ER -