MIT engineers create artificial muscle that mimics real tissue

In context: Making robots more biologically compatible has been a challenge scientists have been tackling for years. Until now, they have primarily been able to create lab-grown muscle fibers that contract along only one plane. That works well for a robotic arm that bends at a single joint, but it falls short when it comes to more complex movements. In contrast, the human body's muscles are far more versatile thanks to fibers arranged in intricate, crisscrossing patterns. Now, MIT engineers have taken a major step toward developing robots that replace rigid gears with something much softer – almost like real, living muscle tissue. In other words, they have found a way to grow artificial muscle that can flex in multiple directions. To achieve this, they devised a new stamping technique that 3D prints tiny grooves into a soft gel. The actual process is complex, but to simplify: when muscle cells are seeded onto the gel, they grow along these grooved patterns. As a proof of concept, the ... Read full article.