Robot muscles.

Pretty cool seeing the similarities with human muscles and work the same way.

It is very cool. This is one of the reasons why i feel that when we get the technology (thats also economically decent) then we can create a robot that can move just as well as us, without the boxy "robotic" movements, they do now, due to the lack of flexibility we have. Our bodies are designed so intricately its really mind blowing. We have so many muscles that all have a purpose, and some move together to help each other out. Along with the muscles, we have cartilage that helps glide our bones over each other smoothly, with the assistance of tendons and ligaments to act as 'duct tape' to hold everything together. Once we can create a robot with all that delicacy and intricacy, running small bands of elastic fibers acting as muscle fibers, and a silky gel type that retains a wet feeling for cartilage, etc. then we can create a truly remarkable moving robot that can run, jump, dance, swim....

It'll be a bit more complicated than that

Currently, the power/weight ratio of robotic arms is pretty poor. It's improving, but a robot with the same strength and dexterity as a human would have to be massive.

Our muscles work by elongated cells contracting and bulging when stimulated by a nervous impulse - until we can get that recreated synthetically, we're not going to have the robots we all so desperately want. Running pneumatic or hydraulic hoses everywhere is a poor analog of the more powerful terrestrial muscles.

We have the muscles we do because we need them, or because they've been useful to us tens of thousands of years ago and we've yet to genetically discard them. We are as complicated as we are because this design was the most prosperous of all the tiny mutations the gene pool provided. But let's not get into a "God did it" thread

No offense, deltaboy, but this was a bit disappointing. I was hoping to see something new in the field of muscle research. This appears to be based on the compressed air version, where a reinforced bladder is filled with compressed air to make it bulge and therefore contract. The most recent of the techniques and the one that most closely resembles human muscles, to be sure, but it still has some major problems. The muscles require a major source of compressed air and are therefore expensive to use energy-wise. They are also weak compared to a human muscle of the same size (as has been pointed out), and are prone to failure from the bladder tearing under the pressure.

Still, it's a seemingly better approach than solenoids or linear gearing tied to motors. Both of those lead to the jerky robotic motions we are all familiar with. And the only other way I know of to produce linear motion is with the muscle wires, which have a very limited range of motion and a low force as well.

Anyone have any other info? This is something I am actively working on, but I keep getting nowhere fast...

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


There's lots of interesting stuff out there on electroactive polymers (EAP). One guy started a challenge for people to make a robotic arm powered by EAP that could beat a human in an arm wrestle. The link is here.

EAP seems to be the wave of the future. Before that it was a synthetic material that would contract and expand in the same fashion as an animal muscle, but instead of using electrical impulses to create the force, acids and alkalis were used (one would cause the "muscle" to contract, the other expand). That, of course, is barely better than a simple hydraulic system for complexity, but offered significant gains in the power/weight ratio. Hopefully EAP will get us even further.

More good reading here.

reply to post by dave420

Ah! Thank you!

Of course, you realize this means I may not posting regularly here fopr a few days while I research this....

TheRedneck

reply to post by Schmidt1989


I agree, very cool indeed.
Really makes you wonder just why the human body was "CREATED" that way.

Now all we need is a good power source to make the polymers contract. Oh, wait. We already have one.

www.news.cornell.edu...

Time to start building those androids.