Sturdy Pneumatic Muscle Inspired by Animal Muscles

Innovation: Industry

Festo

Image: Joel Herzog / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Capture, Absorb, or Filter Energy

Energy is naturally available in many forms, including kinetic, potential, thermal, elastic, radiant, chemical, and more. All living systems require energy to carry out their many activities, and have developed strategies appropriate to one or more of those forms. For example, some plants maximize their surface area available for capturing radiant energy from the sun while others have strategies to focus scattered light onto photosynthesizing areas.

Search this Function

Modify Size/Shape/Mass/Volume

Many living systems alter their physical properties, such as size, shape, mass, or volume. These modifications occur in response to the living system’s needs and/or changing environmental conditions. For example, they may do this to move more efficiently, escape predators, recover from damage, or for many other reasons. These modifications require appropriate response rates and levels. Modifying any of these properties requires materials to enable such changes, cues to make the changes, and mechanisms to control them. An example is the porcupine fish, which protects itself from predators by taking sips of water or air to inflate its body and to erect spines embedded in its skin.

Search this Function

Manage Compression

When a living system is under compression, there is a force pushing on it, like a chair with a person sitting on it. When evenly applied to all sides of a living system, compression results in decreased volume. When applied on two sides, it results in deformation, such as when pushing on two sides of a balloon. This deformation can be temporary or permanent. Because living systems must retain their most efficient form, they must ensure that any deformation is temporary. Managing compression also provides an opportunity to lessen the effects of other forces. Living systems have strategies to help prevent compression or recover from it, while maintaining function. For example, African elephant adults weigh from 4,700 to 6,048 kilograms. Because they must hold all of that weight on their four feet, the tissues of their feet have features that enable compression to absorb and distribute forces.

Search this Function

Capture, Absorb, or Filter Gases

Oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen are all gases of particular importance to living systems. Living systems obtain these gases from water and air by trapping them, absorbing them across surfaces, or filtering them. Gases are low in density and viscosity, and when dissolved in liquids, are very low in concentration–so extracting them requires specialized strategies. As a result, living systems use the properties of gases, liquids, and solids to assist in capture, absorption, and filtering. For example, fish gills have many filaments to create a large surface area to maximize how many blood vessels come in close contact with oxygen dissolved in the water.

Search this Function

Brochures

Patents

US6349746B1
520.5 KB PDF

The Fluidic Muscle is a strong tensile actuator with contractible elastomers that allow for fluid, elastic movement.

Benefits

Increased strength
Increased flexibility
Use in extreme conditions

Applications

Production
Manufacturing

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 9: Industry Innovation & Infrastructure

The Challenge

Pneumatic devices are used extensively in industrial and manufacturing processes. These actuators must be large enough to provide sufficient strength for the job, but this usually requires a lot of energy. The actuators are also subject to continuous maintenance due to contamination, which increases cost.

Innovation Details

The bionic muscles consist of contractible tubing made of a rubber diaphragm filled with heat-resistant, strong, synthetic fibers called aramid yarns. The diaphragm provides an air-tight seal to protect against outside elements. When the fluidic muscle fills with air, it increases in diameter and contracts in length, enabling sequences that closely approximate human movements. The fluidic muscle can exert ten times the force of a comparably sized cylinder, and can even be used under extreme conditions, including sand and dust.

Rendition of the similarity between Fluidic Muscle and actual human muscles. Photo: Festo.

Biological Model

Muscles are essential for animal movement, and they are made up of thousands of small fibers. The fibers move in a specific sequence when the muscles flex, in order to deliver power and flexibility quickly.

See Related Strategy

colorful microscopic image of animal muscles

Biological Strategy

Skeletal Muscles Generate Force

Vertebrates (Mammals, Fish, Birds, Reptiles)

Skeletal muscles contract and relax, generating force and enabling movement.

AskNature