Design, Fabrication, and Measuring of a Pixelated Mechanical Structure With Shape Morphing and Uniform Contact Force

Pixelated mechanical structures exhibit excellent shape adaptability and force buffering performance due to their arrayed discrete units. Existing pixelated mechanical structures retain the independence of pins, leading to structural and control complexity. This study presents a novel pixelated mechanical structure in which a single cable threads all pins, establishing an interaction effect among pins. This interactive effect enables the pixelated mechanical structure to exhibit distinct displacement and force outputs compared to conventional designs with independent pins. A displacement-force model is developed to relate the input shape to the pixelated mechanical structure’s response, allowing the calculation of output shapes and force distributions when interacting with a hemispherical indenter. Furthermore, altering the cable’s threading topology allows the mechanical structure to generate diverse shapes and force outputs. The displacements of pins and the cable tensions were experimentally measured using a camera and a force sensor, respectively. Moreover, the detecting displacement RMS errors for all three threading topologies are below 0.23 cm, while the force RMS errors are even smaller, not exceeding 0.0012N, validating the theoretical model. The reconfigurable threading topologies of this pixelated mechanical structure make it suitable for applications such as shape-morphing camouflage and programmable force output.