Muscle-powered bio-bots walk on command | News Bureau | University of Illinois

Muscle-powered bio-bots walk on command | News Bureau | University of Illinois: The new bio-bots are powered by a strip of skeletal muscle cells that can be triggered by an electric pulse...

“Skeletal muscles cells are very attractive because you can pace them using external signals,” Bashir said. “For example, you would use skeletal muscle when designing a device that you wanted to start functioning when it senses a chemical or when it received a certain signal. To us, it’s part of a design toolbox. We want to have different options that could be used by engineers to design these things.”

The design is inspired by the muscle-tendon-bone complex found in nature. There is a backbone of 3-D printed hydrogel, strong enough to give the bio-bot structure but flexible enough to bend like a joint. Two posts serve to anchor a strip of muscle to the backbone, like tendons attach muscle to bone, but the posts also act as feet for the bio-bot.

Robot elephant trunk learns motor skills like a baby - tech - 13 March 2014 - New Scientist

Robot elephant trunk learns motor skills like a baby - tech - 13 March 2014 - New Scientist: The design showed that a trunk formed of 3D-printed segments can be controlled by an array of pneumatic artificial muscles...

They used a process called "goal babbling"... the robot remembers what happens to the trunk's position when tiny changes are made to the pressure in the thin pneumatic tubes feeding the artificial muscles. This creates a map that relates the trunk's precise position to the pressures in each tube.

The trunk can now be manually forced into a series of positions and learn to adopt them on command...

Spinning Yarn Into Muscles | Science/AAAS | News

Spinning Yarn Into Muscles | Science/AAAS | News: Baughman, along with colleagues in Texas, Australia, and China, twisted plastic fibers and threads into yarns. Then when they applied heat, they found that the yarns contracted by up to 50%, a result they report today in Science. And cooling the plastic muscles returns them to their original length. Natural muscles, by comparison, only contract by 20%. Twisting together a bundle of polyethylene fishing lines, whose total diameter is only about 10 times larger than a human hair, produces a coiled polymer muscle that can lift 7.2 kilograms, the team found. Operated in parallel, an arrangement that increases their power and is similar to the way natural muscles are configured, a hundred of these polymer muscles could lift about 725 kilograms, Baughman says. Producing this force requires only off-the-shelf materials that cost about $5 per kilogram.

A Micro-Muscular Break Through � Berkeley Lab News Center

A Micro-Muscular Break Through � Berkeley Lab News Center: ...a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium dioxide that for its size is a thousand times more powerful than a human muscle, able to catapult objects 50 times heavier than itself over a distance five times its length within 60 milliseconds...

Wu and his colleagues fabricated their micro-muscle on a silicon substrate from a long “V-shaped” bimorph ribbon comprised of chromium and vanadium dioxide. When the V-shaped ribbon is released from the substrate it forms a helix consisting of a dual coil that is connected at either end to chromium electrode pads. Heating the dual coil actuates it, turning it into either a micro-catapult, in which an object held in the coil is hurled when the coil is actuated, or a proximity sensor, in which the remote sensing of an object (meaning without touching it) causes a “micro-explosion,” a rapid change in the micro-muscle’s resistance and shape that pushes the object away...

The vanadium dioxide micro-muscles demonstrated reversible  torsional motion over one million cycles with no degradation. They also showed a rotational speed of up to approximately 200,000 rpm, amplitude of 500 to 2,000 degrees per millimeters in length, and an energy power density up to approximately 39 kilowatts/kilogram.

Robotics first: Engineering team makes artificial muscles that can lift loads 80 times their weight

Robotics first: Engineering team makes artificial muscles that can lift loads 80 times their weight; In order to achieve this, Dr Koh and his team have used polymers which could be stretched over 10 times their original length. Translated scientifically, this means that these muscles have a strain displacement of 1,000 per cent.

Muscles act as metamaterials due to collective behavior, physicists show

Muscles act as metamaterials due to collective behavior, physicists show: Upon further search for possible mechanisms of negative stiffness, scientists in a new study have found that biological muscles exhibit a mechanical response that also qualifies them as metamaterials: when a tetanized (maximally contracted) muscle is suddenly extended, it comes loose, and if it is suddenly shortened, it tightens up...

Quite surprisingly, the cooperation at the nanoscale in muscles was found to be similar to magnetism; moreover, the critical point at which muscles seem finely tuned to perform near is, in this case, a direct analog of the ferromagnetic Curie point.

Artificial muscle computer performs as a universal Turing machine

Artificial muscle computer performs as a universal Turing machine: The artificial muscle computer is modeled on Stephen Wolfram's "2, 3" Turing machine architecture, which is the simplest known universal Turing machine...


In its current version, the artificial muscle computer is very large (about 1 m3) and extremely slow (0.15 Hz).

Pneumatic Muscles Power Sinewy New Leopard Robot | Popular Science

Pneumatic Muscles Power Sinewy New Leopard Robot | Popular Science: But Pneupard's creators, a team of researchers from Osaka University in Japan, aren't looking to race against the DARPA cheetah. Instead, they hope to learn more about natural cheetahs' locomotive secrets, which in turn will help build more agile robots...

Pneupard is already able to handle unevenness on the road, which researchers demonstrated by slipping blocks of metal, wood and other materials under its feet as it strode along a treadmill...

New Scientist TV: 3D-printed cyborg muscle produces artificial heartbeat

New Scientist TV: 3D-printed cyborg muscle produces artificial heartbeat:  ...the pump uses the gas released by live yeast to generate pressure and distend a membrane, turning it into an artificial muscle. A valve - activated by electricity produced by a microbial fuel cell - controls the movement of the membrane. It opens to release pressure when the muscle is fully expanded, allowing it to shrink back to its resting state again to begin another cycle.

Walters says that using yeast allows a lot of pressure to be generated quickly.

One Per Cent: Artificial muscle for soft robots can bend in sunlight

One Per Cent: Artificial muscle for soft robots can bend in sunlight: When hit with UV light at a wavelength of 365 nanometres it expands, bending and increasing in mass by taking on water. Visible light at a wavelength of 430 nm restores the muscle to its previous form. "The gel absorbs water like an expanding and contracting sponge," says Harada.

The muscles work via the interaction of two chemical compounds in the gel - azobendrine and cyclodextrin - which react differently under different light. The direction in which the gel bends can then be controlled by shining UV and visible light from various angles.

Wax-Filled Nanotubes Flex Their Muscles - ScienceNOW

Wax-Filled Nanotubes Flex Their Muscles - ScienceNOW: Scientists have designed a flexible, yarnlike artificial muscle that can also pack a punch. It can contract in 25 milliseconds—a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye—and can generate power 85 times as great as a similarly sized human muscle...

...Baughman's team realized, if they could instead infuse a material into carbon nanotubes to control the contraction, they could do away with the electrolyte solution. The researchers came up with a simple design: They soaked nanofibers in wax and then twisted them into yarns. The arrangement of the carbon nanofibers in the yarns is similar to the fibers in a finger trap child's game in which attempting to pull your fingers out of a tube only tightens it more. In the case of the carbon nanofibers, the expansion of the integrated wax shortens the fibers. And the wax's volume can be changed by altering the temperature, either using external power sources or in response to the surrounding environment. The new muscles, the team reports online today in Science, can lift about 100,000 times their own weight—many times more than a natural human muscle fiber.

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms: The first prototype, currently on display at the Science Museum in London, has six silicone legs designed for locomotion, while two specialised arms use artificial muscles, motors and sensors to detect and grasp objects. A spring-like structure inside these tentacles, made from a shape-memory alloy, can expand, contract or bend in any direction with changes in temperature.

Cecilia Laschi of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, and colleagues control their robot's behaviour via a centralised unit that mimics the central nervous system of an octopus.

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscle - MIT News Office

Researchers engineer light-activated skeletal muscle - MIT News Office: The group has genetically engineered muscle cells to flex in response to light, and is using the light-sensitive tissue to build highly articulated robots...
The researchers cultured such cells, or myoblasts, genetically modifying them to express a light-activated protein. The group fused myoblasts into long muscle fibers, then shone 20-millisecond pulses of blue light into the dish. They found that the genetically altered fibers responded in spatially specific ways: Small beams of light shone on just one fiber caused only that fiber to contract, while larger beams covering multiple fibers stimulated all those fibers to contract...

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm - MIT News Office

Soft autonomous robot inches along like an earthworm - MIT News Office: Now researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed...
The robot is named “Meshworm” for the flexible, meshlike tube that makes up its body. Researchers created “artificial muscle” from wire made of nickel and titanium — a shape-memory alloy that stretches and contracts with heat. They wound the wire around the tube, creating segments along its length, much like the segments of an earthworm. They then applied a small current to the segments of wire, squeezing the mesh tube and propelling the robot forward...

New 'soft' motor made from artificial muscles

New 'soft' motor made from artificial muscles: The team's proof-of-concept motor is controlled with carbon-based switches whose resistances change when they are compressed, which activates artificial muscles that rotate a shaft. The artificial muscles, in turn, are able to activate the switches by their movements. All that is required to operate the device is a direct current input voltage.

Blog - Elastic Electrical Cables for Robotic Skin

Blog - Elastic Electrical Cables for Robotic Skin: Typically, for robots to be able to articulate their rigid joints, roboticists have to include extra, slack wiring to accommodate the movement. A stretchy cable is more forgiving, eliminating the need for some of that slack. Asahi Kasei is also one of the world's major manufacturers of spandex (though under the brands ROICA and Dorlastan), so the company is very much at home in the world of the stretchy. "We thought, if we can make a cable that stretches by a factor of 1.5, it could be used for wearable electronics, or for wiring the skin of humanoid robots..."

Taut-Tech: Smaller, Softer Artificial Muscles to Help Bring Power to Toys and Cell Phones

Taut-Tech: Smaller, Softer Artificial Muscles to Help Bring Power to Toys and Cell Phones: Scientists at the University of Auckland's Bioengineering Institute  in New Zealand are developing an advanced artificial muscle that essentially does the same thing without the need for external conductors. The researchers start by applying grease infused with carbon particles—known as carbon grease—onto a polymer. "By carefully laying down soft electrodes on the membrane's surface, we can control the charge in a clever way, and create something that is smaller, lighter and more portable than previously possible..."

A New Twist on Artificial Muscles - Technology Review

A New Twist on Artificial Muscles - Technology Review: Baughman and his colleagues have already made carbon-nanotube-based muscles that are 100 times stronger than natural muscle and more flexible than rubber. The researchers created the yarn by first growing forests of carbon nanotubes, each about 400 micrometers tall and 12 nanometers wide. They then spun them together into long bundles that are less than 10 micrometers thick.

To create the twisting motion, the yarn is connected to an electrode and immersed in an electrolyte. Ions from the electrolyte enter the yarn, which causes it to first swell and then contract and rotate along its length.

New Scientist TV: Born to be Viral: Robot octopus shakes your hand

New Scientist TV: Born to be Viral: Robot octopus shakes your hand: The team designed the tentacle by using computer models derived from measurements of real octopuses in the lab. Then they created the artificial limb from soft rubber embedded with artificial muscle fibres, allowing it to flex or stretch when an electric potential is applied. It's also equipped with contact sensors, placed under the surface, that detect an object in its reach...
The researchers also plan to improve the tentacle's sensing system by copying the way receptors in muscles detect the motion or position of a limb. By incorporating this feedback, the arm should grasp objects more precisely.

Make: Online | Biomimetic Octopus Tentacle Manipulator

Make: Online | Biomimetic Octopus Tentacle Manipulator: Fig. 1. (a) Arrangement of the hydrostatic muscles in the octopus tentacle: the longitudinal muscles (L) extend along the whole tentacle length; the transversal muscles (T) connect the external tissues and, when contracted, make the tentacle diameter reduce and the length increase. The external oblique muscles (O) around the whole tentacle allow torsion. The central axis of the arm is occupied by the axial nerve cord (N), which includes both nerve cell bodies and axons, and it is wrapped by medial oblique muscles. (b), (c), (d) Design of the muscular elements of the robotic tentacle: longitudinal muscles (b), transverse muscles (c), and integration in an arm (d).