Wirelessly controllable bioelectronic neuromuscular robots for steering actuation behavior. (A) Dynamic control of the heart via neural innervation of cardiomyocytes (CM). (B) Schematic of a bioelectronic neuromuscular robot with selective motor innervation of CMs driven by a wireless frequency multiplexing bioelectronic device. Credit: Hiroyuki Tetsuka
A combined team of bioresearchers and roboticists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, US, and the iPrint Institute, Switzerland, have developed a small swimming robot using human motor neurons and cardiomyocytes cultured to mimic muscle tissue.
Their article is published in the journal Scientific robotics. Nicole Xu, a mechanical engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, published a Focus article in the same journal issue describing ongoing work to create bioinspired robots using animal tissue.
For many years, science fiction writers and filmmakers have used the idea of combining electronics, computers, and animal tissue to create robots with unique and sometimes terrifying attributes. In the real world, Xu describes this work as ongoing.
Animals, including humans, have abilities that far exceed anything robots can do. Doing laundry, for example, requires a myriad of skills, including sorting dirty clothes, choosing washer and dryer settings, and folding or hanging clothes.
Such activities require both dexterity and mental processing. This is why roboticists are studying the development of biohybrid robots. The research team created a ray-shaped swimming robot with a computer brain that controls human muscle cells activated by human motor neurons.
To create the robot, the researchers cultivated both motor neurons and cardiomyocytes produced using human pluripotent stem cells. The cardiomyocytes were programmed to grow into muscle cell tissue on a scaffold that resembled ray fins, allowing them to connect with motor neurons.
This allowed the creation of electrical synapses. Some motor neurons were then connected to an electronic processor that served as the robot’s brain. It housed Wi-Fi circuits that transferred signals from the human controllers to the left or right aileron, or both.
Manufacturing process of the flexible wireless dual-frequency bioelectronic device based on PCB. Credit: Hiroyuki Tetsuka
In this way, the researchers were able to control their robot’s movements, ultimately giving it the ability to swim.
Over time, the research team discovered that they could maneuver the robot precisely, including making sharp turns. They also found that they could make it swim at speeds of up to 0.52 ± 0.22 mm/s.
More information:
Hiroyuki Tetsuka et al, Wirelessly steerable bioelectronic neuromuscular robots adapting neurocardiac junctions, Scientific robotics (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.ado0051
Nicole W. Xu, Float like a butterfly, swim like a biohybrid neuromuscular robot, Scientific robotics (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.ads4127
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