geek • determined dreamer • food evangelist • life enthusiast • venture capital investor
MIT's Artificial Muscle Fiber Brings Fine Robot Motion Much Closer
One of the things that still makes robots look robotic is the way they move. Jerky, mechanical, imprecise. A big part of that comes down to how they are built, servo motors crammed into joints, converting rotation into movement in a way that biological muscle simply does not. Researchers at MIT and Politecnico di Bari may have just found a better way. They developed what they call electrofluidic fiber muscles, tiny actuators about as thick as a toothpick that contract when electricity is applied, no motors, no external pumps, no noise. The whole thing works by injecting charge into a sealed dielectric fluid, which creates ions that move the fluid and generate pressure. The result is a fiber that behaves remarkably like real muscle. ...