Muscles in animals have the ability to both control motion and develop muscle memory in the same tissue, but reproducing these multiple functions in an artificial muscle has not been possible until now
- Stoyan Smoukov
The ‘muscles’, made from smooth plastic, could eventually be used in a wide range of applications where mimicking the movement of natural muscle would be an advantage, such as robotics, aerospace, exoskeletons and biomedical applications.
Although artificial muscles (actuators) and polymers that can remember shapes exist, movement and memory have not yet been incorporated in the same material. Now, University of Cambridge researchers have produced such a material, known as polymeric electro-mechanical memory (EMM). Details are published in the journal Materials Chemistry C.
The movement of the artificial muscle developed by the Cambridge researchers, can be manipulated, stored, read, and restored independently. It can store, learn, and later recall, a variety of different movements.
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Image: Artificial fish
Credit: Stoyan Smoukov
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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