Artificial tendons give muscle-powered robots a boost | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT engineers developed artificial tendons that could connect robotic skeletons and biological muscle tissue. Made from tough and flexible hydrogel, the tendons could be used in various bio-hybrid robots.
three types of springs, each representing the central muscle, the two connecting tendons, and the gripper skeleton.
From this modeling, the team derived a recipe for hydrogel of a certain stiffness. Once the gel was made, the researchers carefully etched the gel into thin cables to form artificial tendons. They attached two tendons to either end of a small sample of muscle tissue, which they grew using lab-standard techniques.
