Scientists Create Tiny Soft Robots That Get Propelled by Muscles And Nerves – Mashable India

Posted: September 25, 2019 at 12:45 am

Researchers have been mixing biology and technology together since quite a long time. We have already seen examples of researchers develop tiny human brains using stem cells. Then we have the lifelike robots that can move, eat, and die using artificial metabolism. Now, researchers have developed new soft robotic devices who can swim around when their neuromuscular tissue gets triggered on light exposure.

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The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is led by Taher Saif, mechanical science and engineering professor at the University of Illinois.

As a part of the study, researchers demonstrated a new generation of two-tailed bots that are powered by skeletal muscle tissue and stimulated by on-board motor neurons. These neurons have optogenetic properties, meaning that these neurons fire up to operate the muscles on light exposure.

"We applied an optogenetic neuron cell culture, derived from mouse stem cells, adjacent to the muscle tissue. The neurons advanced towards the muscle and formed neuromuscular junctions, and the swimmer assembled on its own, mentioned Saif. Once the researchers were able to confirm that these neuromuscular tissue of the robots was compatible with synthetic biobot skeletons, they then worked to optimize the swimmer's abilities.

They made use of different computational models to determine which physical attributes in the robots would make them the fastest and most efficient at swimming. They also had to carefully design the scaffold in which these biorobots would grow and interact to achieve locomotive functions.

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Saif and his team are further going to lead the development of these multicellular engineered living systems who can also respond intelligently to environmental cues in the fields of bioengineering and medicine.

Image credit: Michael Vincent/University of Illinois

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Scientists Create Tiny Soft Robots That Get Propelled by Muscles And Nerves - Mashable India

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