Multivalued Inverse Design: Multiple Surface Geometries from One Flat Sheet.

Area of Science:

• Materials science and engineering
• Robotics and mechanical engineering

Background:

• Designing flat sheets to deform into specific 3D shapes is crucial for applications like micromachines, soft robotics, and medical implants.
• Current methods typically allow sheets to achieve only a single target shape.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate that a single flat sheet can be designed to deform into multiple distinct 3D shapes through controlled, inhomogeneous anisotropic deformation.
• To develop an analytical method for solving the inverse problem of designing multi-shape-capable sheets.

Main Methods:

• An analytical method was developed to solve the multivalued inverse problem for sheet deformation.
• Inhomogeneous anisotropic deformation was applied to design the flat sheets.

Main Results:

• A single flat sheet was successfully designed to deform into multiple surface geometries based on different actuation inputs.
• A proof-of-concept simple swimmer capable of locomotion in fluid at low Reynolds numbers was fabricated.

Conclusions:

• The developed method enables the design of single sheets capable of multiple shape transformations, overcoming previous limitations.
• This approach paves the way for fabricating machines that perform complex tasks by cyclically transitioning between various shapes.