Artificial Muscles

If you build a soft robot, you don't want to put rigid actuators inside. With that in mind, scientists have created pliable artificial muscles.

​Although we've seen robotic fish designed to unobtrusively study marine life, scientists more often use remote-operated vehicles with noisy propellers that scare animals. That could eventually change, however, thanks to the development of a totally silent, transparent, soft-bodied robotic eel.

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois have developed an artificial muscle made of carbon fiber and rubber that can lift over 12,000 times its own weight.

​Researchers from Harvard and MIT say that robots made of soft materials are often not as strong as their rigid counterparts. This thinking has led to the development of inexpensive artificial muscles that have been designed to give soft robots superpowers.​

The emerging field of soft robotics is helping to make robots safer, but recreating muscle is no easy task. Now, mechanical engineers from Columbia University have developed a synthetic soft muscle that’s much more simple to make and run than others, and is stronger than the real thing.

There are many people who could use a bit of help moving their limbs, but they don't necessarily need a full-on exoskeleton. Well, imagine if their clothes could provide that help. Such a thing may one day be possible, thanks to the recent creation of "textile muscles."

Self-healing is an increasingly common ability in the world of new materials. Now, researchers have developed a stretchy, transparent material that can not only repair itself, but act as an ionic conductor, opening the possibility for self-healing artificial muscles.

MIT researchers have created artificial muscles using simple re-purposed nylon filament. The new flexing material has potential in everything from robotics and artificial limbs to powered flexible components for use in the automobile and aviation industries.

Japanese researchers at Hiroshima University and Daiya Industry Co. have created an assistive exoskeleton that does away with heavy batteries and motors. Instead, their Unplugged Powered Suit (UPS) harnesses the wearer's own weight.​

Scientists have developed a new hydrogel that stretches and contracts just like an artificial muscle. The team created an L-shaped object made out of the hydrogel and immersed it in a water bath. When the water’s temperature was varied, it slowly "walked" forward.

All living organisms – human, animal, or otherwise – continuously move molecules around their cells. It's a crucial mechanism of life, vital for feeding cells the proteins they need to function. And now scientists at Northwestern University have created a machine that mimics this pumping mechanism.

Most artificial muscles can only expand in one direction, or contract in the other. Now, however, scientists from National Taiwan University have gotten around that limitation using gold-plated onion cells.