Plastic muscles/steampunk lives

It's an interesting technology, and in the long run, it makes a lot of sense. It'll make devices of all shapes and sizes (like robots) a great deal more human-compatible in civilian situations.

FWIW, here's a link to a PopSci article on the arm-wrestling machines the New Scientist article talks about. Yeah, it's not ready for prime-time... but it will be!

Now, muscles contract, right? Not being a genius, I wonder how stretching would work as efficiently as a muscle contraction. Stretch = longer, so the muscle would be moving (if stiff like a rod) whatever was attached to its endpoints further apart, wouldn't it? Or if it wasn't very stiff and was taut between the attachment points before applying current, when it stretched it would just droop like cooked spaghetti.

I'm guessing there's some way of assembling these stretchable artificial muscles and attaching them properly so that the appropriate result is achieved. I'm just too toopid to finger out how.

Still, the whole concept is intriguing, to say the least.

That's what's getting me about this article - muscles contract. I'm wondering if they mispoke or typo'd? And aside from the cool things this stuff could do for research and even exploration, I'd like to see an application aimed at helping paralyzed folks to walk again. (I'm sure they're thinking of that, too).

But the airship idea is pretty ding-dang interestin' !

Well, seeing as I haven't read the article and have no expertise, I just naturally thought I'd chime in.

Muscles often work in opposition to another, while one contracts, the other relaxes. If your only option with this technology is stretching, the default setting should be fully contracted. Causing one of the paired "muscles" to relax should result in movement, no?

Just a thought, probably wrong.

That is logical. But then you'd have to apply constant current to keep the muscle in the stretched state, which is where it would have to be when not doing work. So the only time you'd not be using up energy was when you actually wanted the muscle to do something -- you turn the juice off and the muscle un-stretches/contracts and moves the tail or whatever.

That would be like your car not using gas when you drove it to work, but as soon as you park and turn off the key, it starts sucking back the gas for as long as it's sitting there doing nothing.

I can see how it would function for this artificial muscle if all it could do is stretch, but it would be a horrendously inefficient use of energy if there were any extended periods where you don't want the muscle to be doing anything.

ETA: upon further thought, I suppose it would work for an application where these muscles would have to be constantly flexing to do whatever it was designed to do, and then you power it off completely when not in use and all the muscles un-stretch. Perhaps that's the durability issues they're having. You'd have all the muscles in their un-powered contracted state when the thing was turned off, continually putting the highest tension on themselves and the structure they're attached to until you power it up again.

ChunkyC said:

Now, muscles contract, right? Not being a genius, I wonder how stretching would work as efficiently as a muscle contraction. Stretch = longer, so...

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There is a wide range of approaches with artificial muscle, but AFAIK, most of them work on a relaxation/contraction model. Some apparently do stretch under actuation, but they'd be used under more specialized conditions.

The contraction/relaxation model, of course, is the same as human muscle – which is half the battle for making this technology usable in human enviornments. There would be a type "expansion" with these fibers, but that would be a side-effect of the contraction – literally. The mass has to go somewhere, so as the fiber gets shorter, it gets fatter (kinda like human muscle).

Check this out. I read about it in my local newspaper, but was supplied by the New York Times News Service and there were pictures of it. There is a photo, which you can see in the links that follow, and a diagram of how it works. The caption at the diagram reads:
Here's an article from Tufts U. that further describes the research. Also this, and this.

And eventually we'll have Roy Batty.

Inkdaub said:

And eventually we'll have Roy Batty.

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Possibly, though with synthetic muscles, I'd lean more toward "Bishop" from Aliens (or, sooner, "Sonny" from I, Robot).

I think Roy was based on remixed genetics, probably more "Marius" from R.U.R...

[pick]
nit
[/pick] (...sorry)

Yeah I hear you, you aren't nit picking at all. I meant Roy in a more general than specific way...as in humanoid bio-mechanical type guys and dolls. Though I know you are saying that Roy is light on the mech side of bio-mech...

Well, it's about darned time -- these materials have been "becoming" for like 30 years!! I had a story from back them that depended on simple electrosetting (reversible!) sticky plastics.

As you sit there pecking at the keyboard, note the action you take with a single finger to depress a key. When some of this "muscle plastic" can twitch that quickly with that much force, we're onto something.

But yeah I agree that it's going to be bass-ackward until we get a polymer that contracts upon voltage -- I don't have an argument framed yet, but I think that's more from mechanical efficiency than any sort of anthropomorphist chauvenism.

Anthony Ravenscroft said:

...But yeah I agree that it's going to be bass-ackward until we get a polymer that contracts upon voltage -- I don't have an argument framed yet, but I think that's more from mechanical efficiency than any sort of anthropomorphist chauvenism.

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AFAIK, most of the fibers actually do contract when actuated. There are a few that extend but those are rarer.