However, the rigid computer chips traditionally needed to enable advanced robot capabilities -- sensing, analyzing and responding to the environment -- add extra weight to the thin sheet materials and makes them harder to fold. The semiconductor-based components therefore have to be added after a robot has taken its final shape. Now, a multidisciplinary team led by researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has created a new fabrication technique for fully foldable robots that can perform a variety of complex tasks without relying on semiconductors. A study detailing the research findings was published in Nature Communications. By embedding flexible and electrically conductive materials into a pre-cut, thin polyester film sheet, the researchers created a system of information-processing units, or transistors, which can be integrated with sensors and actuators.

A wireless origami-inspired robot could travel through the digestive system, releasing accurate drug doses at the site they will be most effective. Qiji Ze at Stanford University in California and his colleagues have built a 7.8-millimetre robot from polypropylene film that is just 0.05 millimetres thick. At each end is a thin magnetic plate that enables external magnetic fields to control the robot's movement as it travels inside a body.