AÑO
2017
CATEGORÍA
Cuerpo
OBJETIVOS
Salud y bienestar
PAL. CLAVE
artificial organs, exoskeleton , healthcare
PAÍS
Sweden
CRÉDITOS
Ali Maziz, Alessandro Concas, Alexandre Khaldi, Jonas Stålhand, Nils-Krister Persson and Edwin W. H. Jager
LINK
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1600327
Knitting and weaving artificial muscles
soft artificial muscles made by the process of weaving and knitting
A need exists for artificial muscles that are silent, soft, and compliant, with performance characteristics similar to those of skeletal muscle, enabling natural interaction of assistive devices with humans. By combining one of humankind’s oldest technologies, textile processing, with electroactive polymers, the project demonstrates the feasibility of wearable, soft artificial muscles made by weaving and knitting, with tunable force and strain. These textile actuators were produced from cellulose yarns assembled into fabrics and coated with conducting polymers using a metal-free deposition. To increase the output force, we assembled yarns in parallel by weaving. The force scaled linearly with the number of yarns in the woven fabric. To amplify the strain, we knitted a stretchable fabric, exhibiting a 53-fold increase in strain. In addition, the textile construction added mechanical stability to the actuators.