# A Quadrotor with an Origami-Inspired Protective Mechanism

## TL;DR

This paper introduces an origami-inspired, passive foldable quadrotor that reconfigures its structure during collisions to protect sensitive components, enhancing safety and robustness of aerial robots.

## Contribution

It presents a novel origami-inspired design for a passive protective mechanism in quadrotors, including fabrication, modeling, and characterization.

## Key findings

- Folds in less than 0.15 seconds upon collision
- Successfully protects components during mid-flight impacts
- Demonstrates rapid and reliable reconfiguration in tests

## Abstract

Despite advances in localization and navigation, aerial robots inevitably remain susceptible to accidents and collisions. In this work, we propose a passive foldable airframe as a protective mechanism for a small aerial robot. A foldable quadrotor is designed and fabricated using the origami-inspired manufacturing paradigm. Upon an accidental mid-flight collision, the deformable airframe is mechanically activated. The rigid frame reconfigures its structure to protect the central part of the robot that houses sensitive components from a crash to the ground. The proposed robot is fabricated, modeled, and characterized. The 51-gram vehicle demonstrates the desired folding sequence in less than 0.15 s when colliding with a wall when flying.