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Robots

Robots could overpower humans thanks to new 'artificial muscle'

By Jasper Hamill The Sun
Published | Updated
Terminator

File photo - A robot from the movie is on display for the premier of the motion picture Terminator 3 "Rise of the Machines" June 30, 2003 in west Los Angeles. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)

Robots could soon be 15 times as strong as humans thanks to a new artificial muscle.

Scientists used a 3D printing technique to create the rubber-like synthetic muscle that could lead to the creation of machines which “make the Terminator look puny."

The material was capable of expanding to nine times its normal size when heated.

In tests it demonstrated enormous strength, having a strain density – the amount of energy stored in each gram of a stretched elastic body – 15 times greater than natural muscle.

The device, described as a “soft actuator,” was able to lift 1,000 times its own weight, said the researchers whose work is reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Professor Hod Lipson, from the Creative Machines laboratory at Columbia University in New York, said: “We’ve been making great strides toward making robot minds, but robot bodies are still primitive.

“This is a big piece of the puzzle and, like biology, the new actuator can be shaped and reshaped a thousand ways. We’ve overcome one of the final barriers to making lifelike robots.”

As a champion body builder, Schwarzenegger was famous for his muscles before making his name in Hollywood and starring as a homicidal android in the Terminator movies.

Artificial muscles may not only suit killer robots but also sensitive surgical devices and a host of other applications where gripping and manipulation is important.

Co-author Dr Aslan Miriyev, also from the Creative Machines lab, said: “Our soft functional material may serve as robust soft muscle, possibly revolutionizing the way that soft robotic solutions are engineered today.

“It can push, pull, bend, twist, and lift weight. It’s the closest artificial material equivalent we have to a natural muscle.”

The long-term aim is to accelerate the artificial muscle’s response time and link it to an artificially intelligent (AI) control system, said the researchers, who were part-funded by the Israeli defense ministry.

This story originally appeared in The Sun.