A joint team of biological researchers and robot experts from Brigham Women’s Hospital in the United States and the iPrint Institute in Switzerland used human motor neurons and myocardial plastids to simulate muscle tissue and developed a miniature swimming robot.
Their paper was published in the journal Scientific Robotics. Nicole Xu, a mechanical engineer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, published a focus article in the same issue of the journal outlining ongoing work to create biomimetic robots using animal tissue.
For years, science fiction writers and filmmakers have used the idea of combining electronics, computers and animal tissue to create robots with unique and sometimes frightening properties. In the real world, Xu said such work is underway.
Animals, including humans, have capabilities far beyond robots. For example, washing clothes requires multiple skills, including sorting dirty clothes, selecting washing machine and dryer settings, and folding or hanging clothes.
These activities require both flexibility and psychological processing. Because of this, robotics experts are exploring the development of biological hybrid robots. The research team has created a swimming robot similar to a ray whose computer brain can control human muscle cells activated by human motor neurons.
To produce robots, the researchers cultivated motor neurons and cardiac plastids produced using human pluripotent stem cells. Cardiac plastids are programmed to grow into muscle cell tissue on scaffolds similar to radiation fins, allowing them to connect to motor neurons.
This makes it possible to create electrical synapses. Some motor neurons are then connected to the electronic processor that charges the robot’s brain. It is equipped with Wi-Fi circuitry that transmits signals from a human controller to the left or right fin, or both.
In this way, researchers were able to control the robot’s movements and ultimately give it the ability to swim.
Over time, the research team discovered that they could manipulate the robot accurately, including sharp turns. They also found that they could make it swim at speeds of up to 0.52 ± 0.22 mm/s.
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Original text:https://techxplore.com/news/2024-10-biohybrid-robot-motor-neurons-cardiomyocytes.html
More information: Hiroyuki Tetsuka et al., Wireless-steerable bioelectronic neuromuscular robot adapted to neuro-heart connection points, Scientific Robotics (2024). DOI：10.1126/scirobotics.ado0051
Nicole W. Xu, floating like a butterfly, swimming like a biological hybrid neuromuscular robot, Scientific Robot (2024). DOI：10.1126/scirobotics.ads4127
Journal information: “Scientific Robot”
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