Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through a watery maze
Powered by muscle cells, a paper-thin robot swims through a watery maze
MIT engineers have developed a soft, paper-thin robot that swims through water using a single layer of genetically engineered muscle cells. The robot's 'fins' are covered with live muscle cells that twitch in response to light, allowing it to flap and navigate through a watery maze. The study demonstrates the potential of biohybrid robots for delicate aquatic tasks, with the robot achieving a swimming speed of about four times its body length per minute.
This research introduces a biohybrid robot powered by a single layer of genetically engineered muscle cells, demonstrating controlled swimming through light stimulation. The robot's design emphasizes efficiency and thinness, with potential applications in delicate aquatic exploration. The study highlights the importance of optimizing gel structures to support muscle cell alignment and force output
Source: Tech Xplore — Robotics · Read original article ↗
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Publisher-reported claims, with original evidence. These results have not been independently verified by RoboSignal.
Reported numbers
body length
≈4
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to flap with enough force to pull the robot through water. By flashing light on one fin or the other at various intervals, they can control the swimming robot's direction and speed. The engineers showed that the paper-thin bot could swim and swivel through a simple watery maze. At its fastest, the robot can swim a distance of about four times its body length in one minute. That's a snail's pace compared with Olympic
Open source S4body length
≤65
View original evidence
swimmers, who can cover up to 65 body lengths per minute. But the bot could hold its own against more leisurely swimmers like the cow shark, which explores the ocean at about the same rate. "It takes a lot of force to move through water versus air," says study author Ritu Raman, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. "The robot's quite strong, given its size." The new robot is the first example of a v
Open source S5distance
≈4
View original evidence
to flap with enough force to pull the robot through water. By flashing light on one fin or the other at various intervals, they can control the swimming robot's direction and speed. The engineers showed that the paper-thin bot could swim and swivel through a simple watery maze. At its fastest, the robot can swim a distance of about four times its body length in one minute. That's a snail's pace compared with Olympic
Open source S4distance
≤65
View original evidence
swimmers, who can cover up to 65 body lengths per minute. But the bot could hold its own against more leisurely swimmers like the cow shark, which explores the ocean at about the same rate. "It takes a lot of force to move through water versus air," says study author Ritu Raman, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. "The robot's quite strong, given its size." The new robot is the first example of a v
Open source S5movement
≈100
View original evidence
only moved about 100 microns. From a robotics perspective, their movements were tiny." In their new work, the team aimed to maximize muscle movements to produce more force—enough, say, to power a swimming robot. The key, they found, was to optimize the skeleton on which the cells grow. In their previous iris-inspired design, they grew muscle cells on fibrin, a type of ultrasoft gel that the team realized can quickly
Open source S10muscle movement
≈100
View original evidence
only moved about 100 microns. From a robotics perspective, their movements were tiny." In their new work, the team aimed to maximize muscle movements to produce more force—enough, say, to power a swimming robot. The key, they found, was to optimize the skeleton on which the cells grow. In their previous iris-inspired design, they grew muscle cells on fibrin, a type of ultrasoft gel that the team realized can quickly
Open source S10
- paper: not_reported
- code: not_reported
- weights: not_reported
- dataset: not_reported
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Automatically extracted; no manual editorial approval recorded.
to flap with enough force to pull the robot through water. By flashing light on one fin or the other at various intervals, they can control the swimming robot's direction and speed. The engineers showed that the paper-thin bot could swim and swivel through a simple watery maze. At its fastest, the robot can swim a distance of about four times its body length in one minute. That's a snail's pace compared with Olympic
Open source S4
swimmers, who can cover up to 65 body lengths per minute. But the bot could hold its own against more leisurely swimmers like the cow shark, which explores the ocean at about the same rate. "It takes a lot of force to move through water versus air," says study author Ritu Raman, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. "The robot's quite strong, given its size." The new robot is the first example of a v
Open source S5
ed the disk, similar to how a human iris dilates and constricts the eye's pupil. That work was the first to demonstrate that muscle cells could be grown in a very thin layer and in complex patterns that, when stimulated, could move in multiple, controllable directions. "People hadn't seen this muscle architecture engineered from scratch before," Raman says. "And the cells were moving in multiple directions. But they
Open source S9
only moved about 100 microns. From a robotics perspective, their movements were tiny." In their new work, the team aimed to maximize muscle movements to produce more force—enough, say, to power a swimming robot. The key, they found, was to optimize the skeleton on which the cells grow. In their previous iris-inspired design, they grew muscle cells on fibrin, a type of ultrasoft gel that the team realized can quickly
Open source S10
how muscle cells grew when deposited on the gel's surface. They found that cells grew in better alignment and produced the most force on stiffer gels. The team also varied the gel thickness and found that a half-millimeter-thin film of GelMA offered good support for a single layer of muscle cells. The film was light enough that the cells were able to stick to the gel when they contracted, rather than peeling away. F
Open source S14
Source：Tech Xplore — Robotics · techxplore.com