Xstrings: 3D Printing Cable-Driven Mechanism for Actuation, Deformation, and Manipulation
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3706598.3714282.pdf
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29.54 MB
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Author(s)
Li, Jiaji
Feng, Shuyue
Perroni-Scharf, Maxine
Liu, Yujia
Guan, Emily
Wang, Guanyun
Mueller, Stefanie
Date Issued
April 25, 2025
Publisher
ACM|CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Citation
Jiaji Li, Shuyue Feng, Maxine Perroni-Scharf, Yujia Liu, Emily Guan, Guanyun Wang, and Stefanie Mueller. 2025. Xstrings: 3D Printing Cable-Driven Mechanism for Actuation, Deformation, and Manipulation. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 6, 1–17.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
In this paper, we present Xstrings, a method for designing and fabricating 3D printed objects with integrated cable-driven mechanisms that can be printed in one go without the need for manual assembly. Xstrings supports four types of cable-driven interactions—bend, coil, screw and compress—which are activated by applying an input force to the cables. To facilitate the design of Xstrings objects, we present a design tool that allows users to embed cable-driven mechanisms into object geometries based on their desired interactions by automatically placing joints and cables inside the object. To assess our system, we investigate the effect of printing parameters on the strength of Xstrings objects and the extent to which the interactions are repeatable without cable breakage. We demonstrate the application potential of Xstrings through examples such as manipulable gripping, bionic robot manufacturing, and dynamic prototyping.
Description
CHI ’25, Yokohama, Japan
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714282
