一种骨骼肌驱动的类弹簧生物混合游泳机器人
摘要
<p indent="0mm">Biohybrid machine comprising living tissues and soft structures can intelligently respond to external stimuli and environments, and has attracted increasing attention, particularly in academia. It has become the research highlight and the academic frontier in the area of robotics. In this paper, a spring-shaped biohybrid swimmer powered by engineered skeletal muscle is developed. The biohybrid swimmer features three components: a spring-shaped soft skeleton, an annular soft bio-actuator, and a thin fin. Systematic experimental investigations revealed that the cultured annular soft bio-actuator can yield relatively large contraction deformation and active contraction force, which are necessary for developing biohybrid machines. The proposed spring-shaped biohybrid swimmer can swim toward the designed direction at a small speed. These results pave the scientific foundation to design a class of more complex biohybrid machines and systems with potential applications in health and biomedicine such as drug delivery, <italic>in situ</italic> biopsy, etc.