Problem Statement
Artificial muscles are materials and devices that can change their shapes under external stimuli and produce biologically inspired motions for robot systems, such as high power-to-weight ratio, inherent compliance, and large range of motion. However, current artificial muscles face several challenges, such as fabrication complexity, durability, efficiency, scalability, and integration with other components.
There is a need for developing artificial musculature that can overcome these limitations and enable novel applications in robotics, such as robot manipulators and grippers, biomimetic robots, robotic prosthetics and exoskeletons, medical robots, soft robots, and many others. The goal of this project is to design, fabricate, model, and control bio-inspired artificial muscles that can mimic the performance and functionality of natural muscles. The expected outcome is a prototype that can demonstrate various motions and tasks under different stimuli and conditions.