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Robotics engineers design actuators inspired by muscle
"There are other soft actuators that have been developed, but this one is most similar to muscle in terms of response time and efficiency," lead researcher George Whitesides said.
Actuators are the "muscles" of robots -- the moving parts. Researchers at Harvard are working to build actuators that are more like, well, muscles.
The advantage of a muscle-like actuator is that it is soft, malleable and more resilient. Engineers have designed robots in all sorts of shapes and out of all sorts of materials -- origami robots, bumble bee robots, inchworm robots.
But most soft-bodied robots remain small and relatively weak. Big and powerful robots are mostly still hard-bodied and angular. As such, they pose a danger to themselves as well as humans. If robots are to integrate seamlessly with humans, they need to become more human-like.
A team of researchers set out to build an actuator inspired by the human bicep.
The scientists, led by George Whitesides, a professor at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, designed a soft-bodied actuator with small, hollow honeycomb-like chambers of air. Similar designs have been built and actuated by pressurized air, but Whitesides and his team designed theirs to contract by buckling as air is sucked out by a vacuum.
They dubbed the technology VAMPs -- short for vacuum-actuated muscle-inspired pneumatic structures.
Researchers recalled their efforts in a new paper, published this week in the journal Advance Materials Technologies.
"Having VAMPs built of soft elastomers would make it much easier to automate a robot that could be used to help humans in the service industry," first author Dian Yang, a former Harvard grad student, now a postdoctoral researcher, said in a news release.
"There are other soft actuators that have been developed, but this one is most similar to muscle in terms of response time and efficiency," added Whitesides.
The actuator is not only soft, it also avoids the use of pressurized gas.
"It can't explode, so it's intrinsically safe," said Whitesides.
"These self-healing, bioinspired actuators bring us another step closer to being able to build entirely soft-bodied robots, which may help to bridge the gap between humans and robots and open entirely new application areas in medicine and beyond," concluded Donald Ingber, the founding director of the Wyss Institute.
Source: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/06/01/Robotics-engineers-design-actuators-inspired-by-muscle/2221464804535/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.