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Nanotech Research Works Toward Artificial Muscles

Posted by timothy on from the contract-a-muscle-contract-a-disease dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nanotech researchers are developing artificial muscles that convert chemical energy to mechanical energy. This ambitious project aims at making an artificial muscles from conducting polymers and carbon nanotubes that are chemically powered, like natural muscles, and exceed the force generation, contraction and speed of their natural counterpart. This work will lead to advanced limbs for amputees and robots."

5 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. mnb Re:Super strong muscles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My truck is currently on jackstands.
    The four of them combined have less surface area contacting my driveway than one of my Euro sized 45 shoes.

  2. Re:Super strong muscles by VisualPolitics · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is a welcome development, but the crucial developments for prosthetics is the interface with the nervous sysem.

    --
    Bush was a load Barbara should've swallowed.
  3. Basic Mechanics by Baldrson · · Score: 4, Insightful
    While the carbon nanotube muscles can exceed the performance of natural muscle by generating a hundred times the force and elongating twice as fast, the contraction is less than one-tenth that of natural muscle. The conducting polymer muscles provide similar contractions to natural muscles, but have neither high cycle life nor high energy conversion efficiencies. The goal of the DARPA-funded program is to eliminate these problems and convert from electrically powered to chemically powered artificial muscles.

    It seems these guys haven't heard of the way you convert force to distance and vis versa.

    It's called the "leverage" and its used in everything from simple levers to pully systems.

    --
    Seastead this.
  4. Biological solutions are better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Once again, this is another example of our medical-industrial complex trotting out a non-biological approach to solving a problem that a biological approach is better.

    Having bionic arms using nanotubes and nanotech-based muscle is fine. Figuring out how regeneration such that the body can be made to grow new arms is better.

  5. Re:Super strong muscles by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Strong muscles without the need to exercise. Sounds like a geek's dream come true huh?

    I think men who paid for the super muscles instead of working out (and didn't have any missing limbs in the first place) would just be a laughingstock to people like me. They would be like girls who get their fathers to pay $3000 for them to get increasingly large breasts. A guy who had a much smaller body might be more appealing just for being more real.

    For people with less than two arms and two legs, this sounds good. I just hope it's used to help them and not used for military purposes.

    Another interesting thought, imagine if these things could be combined with nanomachines that are able to build the muscle material. The muscles could be programmed to get bigger, or programmed to automatically repair themselves. Large plastic breasts could never do that.