A team of researchers from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has developed a new type of synthetic soft muscle that can be produced using 3D printing technology. The material turned out to be very durable and is able to withstand a weight 1000 times greater than its own, and the limit of its elastic deformation (stretching) energy is 15 times higher in comparison with the tissues of real muscles.
The material does not require an external source to control pressure, as is often found in other existing solutions that rely on pneumatic or hydraulic inflation (inflation) energy. These components tend to take up a lot of space, making them awkward to use when building machines where compactness and independence are important.
The basis of synthetic muscles is silicone rubber, which has a porous structure filled with ethanol. The material is driven by a low-power electric current transmitted through very thin high-resistance wires.
Synthetic muscle before and after actuation
“We have made some progress in creating a digital brain for robots, but their bodies are still at a primitive level,” commented Hod Lipson, professor of mechanical engineering, leading the project.
“This is a big piece of the puzzle, and just like biology, synthetic muscles that are designed can take and shape in a thousand different ways. We are beginning to overcome one of the last obstacles that prevented the creation of realistic robots."
New synthetic muscles can be of great benefit in the design and manufacture of so-called "soft" robots. In recent years, there has been tremendous progress in the creation of machines endowed with the ability to perform many delicate tasks. However, there are still many actions that solid robots cannot perform.
Capturing and manipulating objects requires a level of dexterity and flexibility that current technology cannot provide. New materials, such as the one discussed in this article, will make it possible to create robots that can manipulate soft and small objects without causing any damage to them.
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Machines using such technologies will be able to provide reliable assistance to a person in work in situations where delicate actions are required, for example, in medicine. It is quite possible that such materials will begin to be used in new generation prostheses, which will be able to provide a level of control much higher than current prostheses provide.
Now scientists at Columbia University are planning to improve synthetic muscles and replace the used high-resistance wires with highly conductive materials to increase the speed and efficiency of muscle response.
Nikolay Khizhnyak