The problem: It’s hard to get robots to move smoothly. All of those rigid parts make for stiff movements and a lot of wasted energy, which — besides looking silly — doesn’t make them all that useful for the commercial settings they are being developed for.
The solution: A team at MIT has used cells from mice to grow living muscle tissue that’s purpose-built for robots. Scientists were already able to grow muscle fibres in petri dishes, but it was unpredictable, resulting in muscles that moved in odd directions. The actual innovation MIT has developed is a spring-like structure that acts like a robot skeletal system for the tissue to grow around, ensuring the muscle is the right size and shape.
What’s next: Don’t expect to see factory robots with human muscles, at least not yet. For now, the team at MIT wants to make very small robots for certain medical procedures.