Electric Motors Can Mimic Muscle Coordination, Opening the Door to Better Robots

At a glance

Researchers at the University of Bristol in the UK built a physical device that uses ordinary electric motors to imitate how muscles move. The motors moved together like muscles even though they did not send signals directly to each other, instead working through a shared mechanical frame. The results could help improve how robots move.

Key points

1. 1

   Muscles are made of many tiny molecular parts, but they produce force smoothly and steadily.

2. 2

   Instead of modeling the complex chemical reactions in muscle, the team used simple rotating parts that attach and detach.

3. 3

   The motors briefly attach to a shared moving frame to apply force, then detach, and they affect each other through that frame.

4. 4

   As the load increased, more parts produced force together, and under some conditions the movement became irregular, as if it stopped and started.

Why it matters

Understanding how muscles coordinate could help robots grip objects and control force in a more natural way.