When it comes to traditional robots, you might think of something made of metal and plastic. This robot assembled from nuts and bolts is made of hard metal.
As robots take on more and more tasks outside the laboratory, this rigid system can pose a huge safety hazard to humans. For example, if an industrial robot hits a person, it is likely to cause bruises or even fractures.
Humans have begun to study how to make robots safer or more supple, from cold machines to supple pets.
When used in conjunction with a conventional actuator such as an electric motor, it is like using air muscles or adding springs to the motor.
For example, the Whigs robot adds a spring between the motor and the wheel legs. If the robot hits something else, such as a person, the spring can act as a shock absorber and cushion, so that people will not be injured. Another example is the Roomba vacuuming robot, which also has a bumper installed so that it does not damage the furniture when it hits the furniture.
But now people are beginning to study in another direction. People want to combine robots with living tissue to develop robots that can be activated by living muscle tissue or cells. These robots can be activated by electronic signals or light, allowing the tissue to connect with their bones, allowing the robot to perform various actions.
This kind of robot can move around like an animal, and the body will be soft. When they live with humans, they are also safer than traditional robots and less harmful to the surrounding environment. Of course, since they are made up of living tissues or cells like animals, they also need nutrients to maintain muscle activity. From a weight perspective, this bio-robot will be lighter than a traditional robot.
Researchers are developing bio-robots by cultivating living cells. The materials they use to grow living cells are usually the heart muscles or skeletal muscles of mice or chicks. The culture carrier is a scaffold that does not damage cell tissue. If polymer materials are used as the substrate for cultivation, then the equipment they developed is a biological robot, a mixture between natural materials and artificial materials.
If you just place the cells on a mold bone without guiding it, then the direction in which they develop is random. This means that when researchers use electronic signals to move them, the contractile force of the tissue will be sporadic, which will reduce the efficiency of the bio-robot.
So in order to better control the forces generated by cell tissue, the researchers turned to micro-molding technology. We engrave or print tiny lines on the bones attached to the cell tissue, which guide the tissue to grow in a predetermined pattern.
After controlling the growth direction of the cell tissue, the researchers can control the magnitude and direction of the force applied to the substrate by the tissue, thereby controlling the movement of the biological robot.
The idea of ​​a biological robot comes from animals
In addition to a large number of bio-hybrid robots, researchers have even used pure natural materials to develop robots that are made entirely of living tissue. Some robots can make crawling or swimming movements under the stimulation of an electric field. Some robots are inspired by medical tissue engineering techniques, which use long rectangular arms to drag themselves forward.
There are also some researchers who are looking for development inspiration from nature and they have developed various bionic hybrid robots. For example, a group of researchers at the California Institute of Technology developed a bio-hybrid robot similar to jellyfish, which they called a "Jellyfish Robot". The device was fitted with a circle of arms, each of which was engraved with protein material. The model is like the muscle of a living jellyfish. When the tissue shrinks, the arms bend inward, pushing the bio-hybrid robot to move forward in the nutrient-rich liquid.
Recently, researchers have shown how to control bio-hybrid robots. A research team at Harvard University uses genetically modified heart cells to swim a bionic robot that looks like a manta. These heart cells respond differently depending on the frequency of the light, and the frequencies of the cells at different locations are also different.
When the researchers use different light to illuminate the robot, the cells contract and send electronic signals to cells in different positions of the manta body. This contraction force is transmitted along the body of the robot, propelling the robot forward. Researchers have been able to use different frequencies of light to control the robot to turn left or right. If the intensity of the light is increased, the contraction force generated by the corresponding cells becomes stronger, so that the researcher can control the robot to move around.
Although humans have made exciting research in the field of bio-hybrid robots, there is still a lot of important work to be done to get these devices out of the lab. Today's bio-hybrid robots have a limited life span and low output power, which limits their speed and ability to perform a variety of tasks. Robots made from mammalian or avian cells are also very demanding on environmental conditions.
For example, the ambient temperature must be close to the temperature of the living body, and the cells need to be nourished regularly with nutrient-rich liquids. One solution is to package these bio-hybrid robots so that the body is not damaged by the external environment and can always be infiltrated in the nutrient solution.
Another solution is to use more robust cellular tissue as an actuator. Case Western Reserve University is investigating the possibility of using solid deep sea creature sea snail cells to make bio-hybrid robot actuators. Because sea snails live in the intertidal zone, they can withstand the dramatic changes in temperature and environmental salt concentrations throughout the day.
After the ebb tide, the sea snails will be trapped in the leeches left by the tide. When the sun rises, the ambient temperature will continue to rise, and after the water in the leeches is evaporated, the salt concentration in the surrounding environment will continue to rise. In the case of rain, the situation is just the opposite. The salt concentration in the surrounding environment will decrease as it is diluted by rain. When the tide comes again, the sea snail can be liberated from the leeches. Therefore, sea snails have formed very hard cell tissues in the process of continuous evolution to adapt to this changing environment.
We have been able to control the action of bio-hybrid robots with the living tissue of sea snails, which means that we can use this highly resistant tissue to develop a more robust bio-robot. This biorobot can lift small pieces of weight about 1.5 inches long and 1 inch wide.
Another important issue that people encounter when developing bio-robots is the lack of an on-board control system for such devices. Engineers now control them by external electric fields or light. In order to develop a fully automated bio-hybrid robot, we also need a controller that can interact directly with muscle tissue and provide sensor signal input to the bio-hybrid robot. One of the ideas is to use neurons or neural clusters as tissue controllers.
This is another important reason why we are excited about the use of sea snails in laboratory research. This sea snail has been used as a model system for neurobiology research for decades. People already know a lot about the relationship between its nervous system and muscles, which makes it possible to use its neurons as tissue controllers.
Although the research work in this field is still at a very early stage, researchers have been able to envision many application prospects for bio-hybrid robots. For example, we use micro-bio-hybrid robots developed by è›žè“ tissue to be used to find hazardous materials or to check for pipeline leaks. In theory, due to the biocompatibility of such devices, even if they are shredded or eaten by wild animals, they will not cause environmental damage or environmental pollution like traditional robots.
One day, these robots may be made from human cells and used in the medical field. The biorobot can be used for targeted administration, removal of embolism or use as a controllable stent. These stents use tissue substrates rather than multi-molecular materials, so they can be used to enhance the strength of the vessel wall and avoid the formation of aneurysms; and these devices may continue to be remodeled and refined in the future and integrated into the human body.
In addition to the small bio-hybrid robots currently being developed, human research on tissue engineering technology will also create opportunities for the development of large-scale bio-robots.
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