About

Catherine Jiayi Cai is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of soft robotics, origami engineering, and magnetic actuation. Her work centers on developing untethered, bio-inspired robots that combine the structural benefits of origami folding with the remote controllability of magnetic fields, enabling compliant yet robust motion in confined spaces. Among her most influential contributions is the creation of a caterpillar-inspired origami robot that achieves diversified, untethered motion through crease patterning (42 citations), and a mold-free origami templating method for magnetically steerable serial and parallel structures (30 citations). She has also advanced portable medical robotics with a body-attached needle positioning mechanism (29 citations) and pioneered multiphysics simulation frameworks for magnetically actuated origami worms (27 citations). Her work on fully-printable soft actuators with variable stiffness via phase transition (23 citations) and multi-leg origami worm robots (22 citations) demonstrates her commitment to scalable, functional designs. With over 200 total citations across her top papers, Cai’s research is shaping the future of compliant, remotely actuated systems for applications ranging from medical intervention to exploratory robotics.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

9
H-Index
16
Papers
232
Total Citations
15
Avg Citations/Paper
🏆 Most Cited Paper
Diversified and Untethered Motion Generation Via Crease Patterning from Magnetically Actuated Caterpillar-Inspired Origami Robot
42 citations · 2020
📈 Most Prolific Year: 2021 (8 Papers)
🤝 Key Collaborators: 39
🏛 Institutions: National University of Singapore, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Top Papers

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links

Available for collaboration
Content generated · 15 days ago