Researchers create skeleton robot with human-like muscles
If robots that mimic animal or human behavior are your nightmare fuel, turn away now. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology went one step further with a skeleton robot, giving it human-like muscles to help with movement. The microfilament muscle “tissues” connect to joints and expand/contract just like the real thing. In fact, the robot has the same number of muscles in its legs as we do. At this point, they’re not very strong and though the strands help with smoother movements, the skeleton still requires assistance to walk.
The skeleton robot can also move its arms and, perhaps most importantly, its jaws with the help of the muscle fibers. This means that it can enjoy the finer things in life, like Cheetos. It’ll be interesting to see if the team can continue to refine the robots movements. More specifically, getting those muscles to expand and contract quickly so that the skeleton can improve its soccer skills.
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