Artifical Muscles

Quote
VDX
Hi zzorn,

... the simplest moving structure, which can be build by 3D-fabbing, is a pneumatic or hydraulic setup from a highly elastic resin.

Image a 'finger' from elastic silicone with some capilaries in the outer area:
- if i apply pressure to a capilary on one side (and mabe vacuum to the corresponding one on the other side), then the finger would bend away from the pressurized side.

Combine three fingers on a platform and settle this platform on a bigger structure in the same layout, so you have a bendable 'hand' with three 'fingers', which are bending and moving corresponding to the pressure in the right capillaries ...

With more complex inner structures you can make very much sophisticated morphing as twisting, expanding and contracting too ...

As you build the parts in slices, you can output every complexity you wish, so with the right resin there it's no problem to build elastic tentacles or more complex figered hands, which can perform highly sophisticated tasks.

The controlling software isn't so easy then, but with a guy, which is in developing neural-networks, i hope to build a NN-simulator, which would 'learn' the right moves by error-feedback on his own.

When the software is 'trained', then it could be copied and is now from the start capable of moving the same structures with high accuracy.

Or it could 'learn' further to handle mechanical and geometrical changes or misfittings ...

Viktor