Researchers at the University of Illinois are developing what they call “bio-bots," or machines that combine synthetic 3D-printed frameworks with biological muscle tissue.
When the muscle fibers are jolted with electricity, they contract. Those muscles are attached to 3D-printed "bones," which are flexible enough to bend under the strain, and the result is forward motion. Scientists can control the speed of each bot by varying the frequency of electric pulses.
Researchers here have worked on similar projects before. A walking bio-bot in 2012 used rat heart cells to provide motion. However, the heart cells were "always on"; researchers couldn’t control when they fired.
The new version solves that problem.
“Skeletal muscles cells are very attractive because you can pace them using external signals,” head researcher Rashid Bashir said. “We want to have different options that could be used by engineers to design these things.”
The Illinois group envisions bio-bots that act as surgical aids or drug delivery vehicles, perhaps even with their own neurons so they can recognize and respond to light or chemical stimuli.
The researchers see many uses for the robots – besides the obvious one of scaring your friends with a weird muscular roboslug – including toxin neutralization and the improvement of biological control systems.
“Our goal is for these devices to be used as autonomous sensors. We want it to sense a specific chemical and move towards it, then release agents to neutralize the toxin, for example. Being in control of the actuation is a big step forward toward that goal,” said Bashir.
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