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New ferroelectric material could give robots muscles (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Detry@kbin.social to c/science@kbin.social

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New ferroelectric material could give robots muscles

A new type of ferroelectric polymer that is exceptionally good at converting electrical energy into mechanical strain holds promise as a high-performance motion controller or "actuator" with great potential for applications in medical devices, advanced robotics, and precision positioning systems, according to a team of international researchers led by Penn State.

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[–] Nessussus@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@Detry 10...9...

I was asked a couple years ago what's keeping us from having walking, talking robots that can at least pass as human to a drunk guy, this is the tech that I named. I figured we'd have good language and voice models by then (and we pretty much do), but the movement of biological systems is really hard to emulate with servos or other actuators. Muscles have the quality where they get thicker as they get shorter and can do so continuously. That goes a long way to making a face move in a realistic way.

We've had artificial muscles for some time, but they either require high energy, need to get hot to contract (and are therefore slow to cycle), or require dangerously high voltages. This one solves the high voltages problem by going miniature. You can get the high fields you need in much smaller voltages that way. It's still early days, but this could be a game changer.