Reviewed by Sarah KellyOct 17 2025
Researchers have developed a new type of flat, motor-free robot called a “metabot” that can fold itself into hundreds of stable shapes to move, grip, and adapt to different tasks.
Image Credit: Cavan-Images/Shutterstock.com
These robots are made from thin sheets of polymer that can snap into a wide variety of configurations, allowing them to perform complex actions without any motors or traditional mechanical parts. Despite resembling animated sheets of plastic, they can crawl, jump, grasp objects, and navigate different surfaces.
We start out with simple polymer sheets that have holes into them, but by applying thin films to the surface of the polymer we’re able to incorporate materials that respond to electricity or magnetic fields. These films serve as actuators, allowing us to change the shape of the sheet remotely.
Jie Yin, Study Corresponding Author and Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University
“By connecting multiple sheets, we create structures that lie flat initially, but can then bend and fold themselves into a wide variety of stable configurations. For example, if we connect four sheets, you have a metabot that can lie as flat as a sheet of paper, but fold into 256 different stable states,” added Caizhi Zhou, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State.
These flat robots can move in a variety of ways, capable of leaping and crawling at various speeds.
The robots can change their shape and gait to adapt to different terrains or to perform a variety of functions, such as gripping and lifting objects. And when we incorporate piezoelectric materials into the thin films, we can cause controlled vibrations in the metabots by varying the voltage and hertz, giving us additional control over their movement. For example, we can have a metabot rotate left or right while staying in one place.
Caizhi Zhou, Study First Author and PhD Student, North Carolina State University
“This is early-stage, proof-of-concept work, but it demonstrates that this approach to robotics is both inexpensive and highly adaptable. Our goal was to bridge metamaterials and robotics, and we think the results are promising,” Yin further added.
The results were reported in Science Advances, and the study was funded by the National Science Foundation under grants 2329674 and 2445551.
Journal Reference:
Zhou, C. et.al. (2025) Multistable thin-shell metastructures for multiresponsive reconfigurable metabots. Science Advances. doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adx4359.