Researchers Demonstrate Electrically Activated Micro-Muscles

mpicpp sends news of research at the University of Michigan in which a self-assembling chain of particles can be used as tiny, electrically-activated muscles. The team started with particles similar to those found in paint, with diameters of about a hundredth the width of a strand of hair. They stretched these particles into football shapes and coated one side of each football with gold. The gilded halves attracted one another in slightly salty water—ideally about half the salt concentration in the sports drink Powerade. The more salt in the water, the stronger the attraction. Left to their own devices, the particles formed short chains of overlapping pairs, averaging around 50 or 60 particles to a chain. When exposed to an alternating electric field, the chains seemed to add new particles indefinitely. But the real excitement was in the way that the chains stretched. ... While the force generated by the fibers is about 1,000 times weaker than human muscle tissue per unit area, it may be enough for microbots.

Not particularly useful

[popo]

The field of artificial muscles already has multiple competing technologies which are superior to this.

For one, the amount of force generated here is problematically low. Secondly, gold? That's going to be a problem for obvious reasons.

The future is in a combination of electroactive polymers and/or electro/thermally-activated shape-memory alloys -- both of which are cheap light and flexible.

Re:Not particularly useful

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Something with substantial gold content isn't going to cut it; but, unless they've markedly improved of late, shape-memory alloys are pretty brutal on your power budget. They seem downright magical in that they work at all; but you are basically talking a resistive heater that you need to dump current into until it warms up enough to change shape(and, obviously enough, bigger structures need more energy to increase their temperature, and achieving faster temperature increases requires higher currents, which is unhelpful if you are hoping to use a battery chemistry that dislikes high discharge rates or suffers from voltage droop under high discharge).

It's not clear that this is it; but artificial muscles are in a pretty sad state compared to their natural counterparts. It would make maintenance and refueling a bit more of a nuisance than just plugging in a battery charger; but with today's tech you might actually be better off with chunks of harvested or cultured muscle and swapping out their nutrient fluid from time to time...

Re:Not particularly useful

[jenningsthecat]

The field of artificial muscles already has multiple competing technologies which are superior to this.

Superior to this, for now. The techniques described may be refined to increase the strength-to-area ratio. The new technology described may also be superior with regard to granularity of control, repeatability/consistency of motion, power efficiency, or other factors not immediately evident.

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[Adriax]

Screw the monster, I want my omnimech.

What the fuck summary?

[skovnymfe]

Really what the fuck summary? Hundredths of a hair width? Football shapes? Powerade-level saltiness? What the fuck is this I'm reading? Science for dummies?

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[king neckbeard]

This is coming from a university with a big football team. That would explain quite a bit.

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[hamburger lady]

Powerade-level saltiness?

it's got what artificial muscles crave!

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[Russ1642]

Should be "Score: 6, Spot on"

OT - What happened with the fishing line muscle

[jgtg32a]

Off topic but what happened with the fishing line muscle? Quick google isn't showing too much new information.