MIT Powers Aquatic Bot with Living Muscle

Swimming robots typically need motors or other mechanical actuators to push themselves through the water. But a new robot developed by researchers at MIT gets around with a layer of living muscle cells thinner than a human hair. The paper-thin biohybrid robot uses two independently controlled muscle-powered fins to swim, turn, and steer. Despite having only a single layer of muscle on each fin, it can move at up to four body lengths per minute.

Most skeletal muscle-powered biohybrid robots are built around bulky 3D tissues that require large numbers of cells and make precise control over individual muscle fibers difficult. The team instead developed a way to grow skeletal muscle as an extremely thin, patterned sheet capable of producing enough force and movement to serve as a practical robotic actuator.

A look at the actuator design (📷: M. Bawa et al.)

The key to their approach is the skeleton...

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