Versatile artificial muscles by adapt to novel robotic applications

What is it about?

This work introduces HARPs, versatile artificial muscles developed by separating design elements, allowing properties like strength, flexibility, and durability to be independently tuned. This enables high-performance actuators that can adapt to many robotic applications.

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Photo by A.Rahmat MN on Unsplash

Photo by A.Rahmat MN on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Artificial muscles promise to bring compliant, high-performance actuation into robotics but have been constrained by limited versatility (the ability to adapt to diverse applications). We introduce the helical anisotropically reinforced polymer (HARP) actuator, unifying high performance with versatility. This capability arises from the HARP’s decoupled design space, which allows its properties to be independently tailored for diverse environments requiring abrasion resistance, low hysteresis, low-pressure actuation, etc. Our contribution is not a muscle that excels in a single task, but a unified design framework enabling muscles to be tailored to a wide range of demanding applications. The framework provides a practical, low-cost path toward widespread use of artificial muscles, potentially transforming them from niche solutions into a general-purpose tool for robotics.

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