Artificial muscle

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
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greenink
Posts: 200
Joined: Jan 28, 2016 15:45

Artificial muscle

Post by greenink »

I guess a few people use FB for robotics and would be interested in the latest work on artificial muscles:
http://movie-usa.glencoesoftware.com/vi ... 13/video-1
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/ ... 3.abstract
integer
Posts: 408
Joined: Feb 01, 2007 16:54
Location: usa

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by integer »

greenink wrote:I guess a few people use FB for robotics and would be interested in the latest work on artificial muscles
Very impressive.
"... can deliver more than 2,000 J/kg of specific work during muscle contraction,
compared with just 40 J/kg for natural muscle."

However, it will be a few days, before I can buy the custom made model to mow my lawn.
BasicCoder2
Posts: 3906
Joined: Jan 01, 2009 7:03
Location: Australia

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by BasicCoder2 »

greenink wrote:I guess a few people use FB for robotics and would be interested in the latest work on artificial muscles:
Yes there is lots of new things are being developed every year but are not practical at this stage.
Although I have used FreeBasic on robotic projects the only other person I know of is Turd's project done many years ago.
http://forum.hackedgadgets.com/viewtopic.php?t=2712
.
greenink
Posts: 200
Joined: Jan 28, 2016 15:45

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by greenink »

It could reduce the cost of mechatronics down to a very low level. A few cent per actuator. I'll definitely give it a try at some stage. There are a number of options for heating the twisted thread besides electrical resistance heating.

I guess you could incorporate ferromagnetic particles in the thread and use this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_heating

or just have an alternating electric field heat the threads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating

You could cool a large actuator quickly by releasing a liquid refrigerant (eg R22) into it and allowing that to evaporate. Then recompress the vapor.
Tourist Trap
Posts: 2958
Joined: Jun 02, 2015 16:24

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by Tourist Trap »

Interesting. Sad enough to think that this will probably be used first to build "mechwarriors" making people carry more and more powerful lethal weapons.
Stonemonkey
Posts: 649
Joined: Jun 09, 2005 0:08

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by Stonemonkey »

TESLACOIL could use this for his robot dinosaur.
greenink
Posts: 200
Joined: Jan 28, 2016 15:45

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by greenink »

The other idea for heating the threads was to embed platinum particles into them and then allow methanol vapor to flow over the threads when heating was required. Surely some of the vapor is going to be wasted if you do that. However the energy density would be far in excess of what a rechargeable lithium battery could provide. So maybe you would only need to refuel your robot once a week rather than recharge it twice a day.
The keyboard on my laptop hardly works now, I'm having trouble typing. I feel this is going to slow things down a bit until I can buy an external keyboard.
greenink
Posts: 200
Joined: Jan 28, 2016 15:45

Re: Artificial muscle

Post by greenink »

Actually, it turns out the conversion efficient is about 1% compared to 20% for the human equivalent. However the low cost, weight and size compensate to a reasonable extent.
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