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Advances in Artificial Muscles Using Plastic
pinglej writes "According to this story on MSNBC, Scientists at SRI have made some advances in muscles made using strained plastic that are more responsive than natural muscles. Has lots of neat applications from speakers to artificial limbs. " I think the best idea is to make me the strongest man alive - it'll be better than cybernetic body armor!
Anyone remember the cartoon Plastic Man? That was some funny stuff. (if you don't, just think "Reed Richards with a funny suit")
Don't pull a muscle, guys! No, not that one!
I can't see how this could be used for any kind of /quality/ speakers - they're completely non-magnetic.. what's worse, a plastic that vibrates over 30,000 times per second - is that /honestly/ realistic? It would have to be wonder plastic.. the likes of which the world has never seen.
" I think the best idea is to make me the strongest man alive - it'll be better than cybernetic body armor!
Except that you'll snap your bones like dry twigs or pull of bone chips at the attachment points.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
China has more people in its army than the US does in the whole country. Imagine what a billion super-soldiers could do.
We all know he wants HUGE PECTORAL MUSCLES!
--
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Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Another step has been made toward assimilating Sector 001 into the collective. Now we just need to perfect those subdermal chips ;)
For immediate release
EroticToys, Inc. reports record profits due to demand for its new RealThruster family of adult toys.
"We're thrilled", said CEO Byron Schlick, "the electrically actuated plastic materials really enhance the... user experience."
Materials like this exert force because they try to maintain an approximately uniform density, so an electric potential squeezes it into a different shape. The trouble with using this to do mechanical work -- like the "artificial muscle" this is being hyped as -- is that you can't exert very much force before the material starts to compress, or else you overwhelm the electrostatic forces. This is sort of the converse of the problem that piezo-based transducers have always had: the electrostatic potentials cause the crystalline lattice of a piezo to expand with considerable force ... but only for a few hundreds of microns, at best. Which makes them good for speakers, or ultra-fine positioning, but not so good for doing work.
As far as I can tell, the most promising avenue for these materials would be to use them rather like small, agile hydrolic pumps that have large dynamic range but little pushing power and even less pull. The comment in the article about an artificial butterfly could be insightful with respect to what you could do with these. As far as artificial limbs go, unless they can dramatically increase the force they can put out, they might be a major breakthrough for actuating the fingers of a prosthetic hand, but they'll be no good at all for replacing the wrist flexors, never mind a bicep.
I would suggest that researchers look for a way to turn this effect around, allowing the material to pull rather than push. Such plastics almost invariably have greater tensile strength than resistance to compression, and it's much easier to engineer around, too.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
The peizo-electric speaker in PalmPilots sure isn't very magnetic either. It still makes sound, yes?
And WTF does vibrating at high frequency have to do with anything? Great, it can reproduce high-end sounds that'll drive your dog nuts. Aside from the barking, what's bad about that?
Thirty kHz isn't really a very outlandish frequency, and you'd know that if you had even the tiniest clue about what you're saying.
Artificial muscles is also the first step to build these giant robots usually refered to as "Mecha" in japanese animation. These robots could used in construction work for example. They could also be used as powerful weapons unfortunately.
Build a robot/armor that uses this as it's muscles covered with titanium or carbon fiber. Use biofeed back from our own muscles to stimulate these artificial muscles and you could have some really cool battle armor. I know, I know we could you it to build artificial limbs and all that, but I just watched to much RoboTech as a kid. I can't remember the guys in the second series but they had some armor that worked this way. I am sure some one out there knows what I'm talking about.
Or any other material to enhance strength. It's all a matter of reattaching the major muscles to enhance the power of the fulcrum (even moving the muscle a millimeter will greatly improve performance.) However, the current trend is to reduce the number of soldiers needed, and to increase their effectiveness. I fail to see how a large increase in human performance would better enable them to blow stuff up.
So we must be about two years away from implanting a weapon directly into people.
We are getting too close to BORG time in my opinion.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Recently I've been wondering about the possiblilty of using a chained array of solenoids as an artificial muscle. The shaft of the solenid could pull on the chassis of the one infront of it, providing muscular pull. The ones I've spected on some of the web sites have a pull of about 5 lbs. A quad can push 350+ Lbs.. so to make a leg strength musclce would require 60-70. Expensive but do-able. The best parts is the solenoids are responsive to varying amounts of currents.
Anyone with more electronics knowledge care to comment
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Sounds like the body shops in Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Just watch, next week they'll announce head-implantable machine guns.
God Fucking Damnit
Combine this with that guy who made the supersuits that basically protect you from everything (you can jump off cliffs in it, get shot with a machine gun, get attacked by wild animals, pretty much anything) and it'd kick ass... people will say there are potentials for abuse. What abuse? That someone might hold up a store knowing that if they got shot it wouldn't hurt them? And you think the guy behind the counter wouldn't have the same stuff? What would he old the store up WITH? ;)
Esperandi
Looking forward to bullet-proof muscles.
I wonder what the biggest application will be; Artificial limbs or augmentation (aesthetics)?
We would definately have some changes in culture:
Augmented Olympics
Record body counts on the Jerry Springer show.
Augmentation as a job requirement
Augmentation as a hinderance to employment
br mcleodnineathomedotcomone better than mcleodeight
Less cholesterol than beef?
What is the best way to prepare it? What does a polymer steak taste like? Will it constipate me? What is the nutritional value? Imagine the shelf life! No more ecoli or sam&ella! Wow, I'm gonna get rich selling polymer bergers!
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Well this a nice abstract idea. The problem you have, is that with these motors in a chain, the tension in the entire chain is equal to the tension in each individual solenoid. ie, if your goal is to be able to lift 375 pounds, requiring lets say 75 soleniods, the tension in each solenoid is still 375 lbs. The tension isn't distrubted evenly among the chain like you think, so though multiple solenoids can handle a larger load then a single one, they aren't rated to be "chained". Most likely you will not gain much benefit from adding more then a few solenoids in a chain. In order to lift that much you have to redesign the motor to handle a larger tension.
Spyky
My first contact with the concept of an artificial muscle started when Prof. Jonathan W. Mills from Indiana Univ. gave an IEEE talk at my college around 1992. When he demonstrated the foreshortening of a small nickle-titanium (nitinol) heat actuated leg all the geeks in the auditorium were impressed. (College profs included)
We had a small lab session where we made the legs from materials he brought and did a Q&A session. I still have that device around played w/ it 2 nights ago. Didn't have a battery around to run current through the nitinol wire to actuate it (the electrical resistance generates enough heat to contract it), so I held a lighter about 6" underneath to test it out. Still worked like a charm.
If you are interested in looking into this thing, I'd suggest hitting
-- "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in
The reason that speakers nowadays use magnets is because its the easiest way to convert electrical energy into mechanical (vibrational, ie. sound) energy. The electrical signal passes through a coil that is in a magnetic field... this causes the coil to become magnetically charged and get attracted or repelled by the magnet, moving the cone (this happens at high frequency, causing a back and forward movement of the coil (which is attatched to the cone... which moves the air at that frequency ... which makes you hear the sound))!
Now... back to the plastics. If we could us a plastic to move a cone (or just itself) in response to an electrical current, then we eliminate the costly, heavy and bulky parts of a speaker (the coil and magnet). SO... yes this can be used to make potentially high quality speakers!
i wont even bother to comment on your "30Khz point" because it is completely illogical.. you would want it to vibrate at different rates, ranging from a few times a second to nearly 20000 times a second in order to cover all sounds that the human ear can hear.
HAHA, anyone else remember how Jimmy Olsen drank the little vial of chemicals and got super-stretchy powers? Then he went around calling himself Elastic Lad? Sweet Jesus in a birtchbark canoe, that was great. Elongated Man on the other hand, was not so great. I think the entire comics industry was on crack back then. Only way to explain these things.Sharkey
http://www.badassmofo.com
1) I read some guy saying "Plastics melt" (among other "weaknesses")- ok, we're not talking saran wrap or the stuff they make pens out of here... the word of the day was "Acrylic"... some polymers can be made to withstand tremendous heat/strain/environments...
2) When they say "muscle"... it doesn't necessarily mean they've got to put it in a human body. They could mean for use in a machine - and muscle is the best word to describe how it works... (Robots, exoskeletons, automatic door closers...)
3) If they were developing it for the human body, it would have to be developed in a tested and controlled fashion. Allowances for added stress would have to be made (re-enforcements to skeletal structure) as part of the design/engineering of the product. Otherwise, the muscle would need be developed to not exceed the strength of the skeletal structure. (beyond the fact that I seem to remember that when bones are stressed they emit a small electrical signal - which would cause these "muscles" to stretch and relieve the tension...)
Don't just look for nay saying ways to FUD the product... any idiot can point out problems... if you were really smart, when you found the problem, you would make a suggestion on how to fix it.
BlackNova Traders
..would've seemed a bit strange if he'd had plastic bionics, with 'Made In Taiwan' stamped on them somewhere! :-)
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Karma: Chameleon
so i wont have to work as hard when im smearing raisins on my chest and doing the macarena
I wonder what the current requirements are for the plastic?
Here are some links for Nitinol wire and its application on the Mars Pathfinder Mission: http://www.robotstore.com
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Well, there is a difference between serial and parallel linking. If you have ten of these motors linked like a chain (serial), then the scenario you described would hold true. If you had ten of these hooked up in parallel, then each motor would have 1/10th of the tension of the load...kinda like when we were kids and we learned how to distribute the load of lifting a person by everyone gathering around and putting two fingers under the person laying down. Remember how amazingly easy it was to lift them?
Next thing you know we'll be plugging ourselves in at the movie theaters and those subwoofer hits will get our whole body jolting. Ever wanted to _feel_ the dino's toss you around in Jurassic Park? ;)
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilence" - Thomas Jefferson
Will the muscles require computer control? God forbid they run Microshaft software; I wouldn't want my muscles to turn blue!!
You wouldn't have to attach to the bone the same way muscles attach... you could use a screw and drill it all the way in.
As for snapping them, I think bones are built to take a lot more stress than muscles can create. You could probably be significantly stronger before fractures became a serious risk.
After all, how often do body builders break bones? I mean, it happens, but it's pretty darn rare. In fact, muscle tears are far more common than broken bones, and that risk would go away.
A world-class power lifter can probably lift 4-5 times what the average man can lift. That would still be pretty cool, particularly if you could have the strength without all the extra mass.
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Excuse me ..... but are you out of your mind? Viagra for dogs? For a minute I'll assume that you're serious. This is a very bad idea. It is bad enough that we have Viagra for humans, but it is at least understandable since it might be necessary to ensure that the species survives in case of some global catastrophe. But for dogs, are you nuts? Sexual relations (and that includes sexual relations between canines) are gifts from God, and therefore so are the physical conditions that are necessary to participate in sexual relations. To suggest that man ought to be able to produce these conditions in dogs whenever he wants to is sickening. To suggest than man ought to be able to second-guess the Almighty and induce reproduction in a canine for entertainment purposes is morally repugnant. It has no basis in Scripture and therefore cannot be considered an acceptable activity.
Furthermore, from the tone of your post it sounds to me like you are a communist. If this is the case, I will pray for you. I really will. Communism is not an economic system that is acceptable to God. God's law says that we are supposed to EARN our bread with the sweat of our brow and that those who will not work, will not eat. Furthermore, God's law also says that you shall not COVET or STEAL what your neighbor has. In other word, Scripture teaches that reward varies with work and that private property is an inalienable right of the people. It should therefore be obvious that the only economic system that is acceptable to God is capitalism. I pray that you will see the light and move away from the evils of communism.
more responsive than natural muscles
I'd imagine they lack one critical feature of real muscles, the ability to repair themselves.
It's neat and all, but life really is the ultimate engineering feat. Being adaptive, with the ability to modify our own behavioural routines, in a self contained, self sustaining unit, that's amazing.
And I thought writing self modifying code in my AI class was hard!
Some guy named Chris
Two troll trolling each other for a change. You don't see that every day.
Heck, how-to instructions for an individual twitch-fiber would be enough to start some interesting projects. Sure would beat Lego Mindstorms.
... tada! On this February 5, 2000 edition of ABC News, new medical research has finally given men the ability to have erections without the aid of the infamous blue pill. The new procedure, called "Synthetic Penile Enhancing Responsive Muscle", or SPERM for short, a newly developed plastic fibre, with much applications in the rest of the world, is placed between layers of tissue fibre within the penis. Whenever the male is arroused, slight electrical signals channel down to an amplifier implanted in the male prostate from the brain and this in turn charges up the plastic muscles to simulate a natural erection. Dr. Bastard E. Horn, the chief surgeon at Kinki University, one of Japan's most highly regarded medical institutions, commented that in the future, all men can finally have that warm, fuzzy feeling upon encountering the infamous Natalie Portman naked and petrified posts found frequently on the Geek website Slashdot.org.
And in other news, Pfizer, the company well known as the maker of Viagra, publically disclosed that they're planning to declare bankruptcy as soon as their lawyers can stop staring at images of young actress Natalie Portman...
This reminds me of the Bauhaus song of the same name.
You could build your own death droids! I think it would be so cool to command an army of them and have them systematicly kill anyone who stands in your way.
And a sense of humility!
To a certain extent, you could do it by "reversing the plugs" -- for example, have the bicep-replacement recieve the signals intended for the tricep, and vice-versa. Of course, relaxing both muscles would cause a double pull instead of a double relax, so it'll be a lot more sensible (at least during early stages) to use it in artificial limb replacements instead of for augementation of existing limbs.
As a heart replacement, logically one would also embed a pacemaker-like device either to control or convert singnals so it would pump correctly...
(just don't let Microsoft install Universal Plug & Play on the thing...)
Steven E. Ehrbar
like the "artificial muscle" this is being hyped as -- is that you can't exert very much force before the material starts to compress, or else you overwhelm the electrostatic forces
What I wondered when I read about it using electric forces, da dee da, is that, if you're going to try to make a muscle out of these things, and you stick a bunch of them together (and they're going to have to be close together to work properly, even though I know they're small) isn't there going to be a lot of electro-static accumulation? Wouldn't somebody outfitted with muscles made of these little things shock everyone they touched? Plus, what kind of battery life is to be considered here? I realize the muscle bit is a while away (or, I think it is), but I still think these are somewhat valid questions.. unless I'm just looking at it all wrong.
Insert mind here.
If this stuff can be manufactured cheaply and in quantity, it's a big step forward for the AR/VR industry. Pull on a thick glove of acrylic muscle and you can pick up and feel the models floating around in AutoCAD. Wrap your whole body in the stuff and stick those acceleration simulator things down your ears and you have a fully immersive tactile virtual world. It's not blindingly obvious, but this material foreshadows the end of the computer mouse.
People with certain strains of MS, MA, etc. (Like me with SMA [See http://www.fsma.org/]) are waiting for this to have a much better life.
This is true, the way I read the previous authors comments, calling it a "chain" I considered it to be a serial linking. However, either combination causes certain problems with size if you are trying to do anything useful, so perhaps a combination of both is the best approach. At any rate, we are way off topic here ;-)
Spyky
A physics teacher once told us, many people break bones when they fall to the ground from heights, because their muscles contract and break the bones. He told us, if we were to fall from an upper-story window or something, to relax your muscles, lie on your side, and put your arm between your skull and the ground.
He was a great story-teller and a less great teacher (didn't bother me, though), so I'd like to know what you think of this advice.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
So how do you picture it being used for your benefit? Would you go for (potentially more risky) surgical augmentation, or for an exoskeleton-type device? Would you want it designed so you were "average" in strength etc. or would you go straight for "superhuman"?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Heh heh heh.
Gotcha.
but, ha ha ha ha, your reply *did* make me laugh out loud.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
"Apparently, Dana finds the 15th boring and dull, dull, dull! Maybe they all should get poofy afros like hers?!" -Nova Centauri, about Dana Sterling (Robotech (second season))