US Army Explores Equipping Robots with Living Muscle Tissue

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/04/army-explores-equipping-robots-living-muscle-tissue/173559/

Looking to pave the way for the production of nimble robots that can move more like living creatures than bulky androids, Army Research Laboratory scientists are embarking on fresh, high-risk studies in biohybrid robotics that could eventually fuse organic tissue with machines.

“This is wholly new to the lab, and the field itself is still relatively young. The publications associated with the first idea of successfully integrating muscle tissue or cells into some larger architecture to control motion with that same biological device didn't really start until after 2000—and really spooled up in the early 2010s. So it's very young, even as a discipline,” explained Dr. Dean Culver, a research scientist at the laboratory. “And that kind of gave us an opportunity to see how we could help move it forward and what expertise that we had that we could levy in that direction to really make an impact.”

In a recent interview, he briefed Nextgov on this future-facing research and the breathtaking applications it could spur.

A Potential Huge Step Forward

Culver studied mechanical engineering, and while in graduate school at Duke University, he became increasingly interested in energy management, and what he deemed the complicated ways beings get motion out of stored energy.

“After I graduated, one of the natural extensions of that is ‘Hey, how exactly do muscles work? How do organisms store energy and turn that into motion?’” he noted. “And it turns out that we knew less about the answer to that question than I had originally anticipated. So, there are obvious applications of that in robotics, and the design of mechanisms and new vehicles, for the Army. That brings us to today—I'm still working on that problem.”

*snip*

[Bayard]

1. No no no no no!

Have they NOT seen the movie?!

[Phoenix61]

3. Apparently not. I don't want to be assimilated! nt

[Renew Deal]

8. It's going to happen and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.

[Hortensis]

12. Lol, my first thought was that if they can do that they can make

"real" non-animal meat.

Yet another realization that I think about food too much.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. "You Will Become One With The Borg"

And, I am creeped out by the Borg.

[Takket]

6. we've seen this before lol

[JCMach1]

4. I for one welcome our Cylon overlords

[Arthur_Frain]

7. By your command!

nt

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Proving the theory that the war machine is a saddistic mutha.

If their soldiers can't feel pain, why bother?

[qazplm135]

9. Welp

Apparently, Terminator was a documentary.

[BannonsLiver]

10. Cool! I wish them luck.

(Not scared by robots like most on DU)

[EX500rider]

11. By Cyberdyne Systems no doubt....lol nt

[elevator]

13. Could bring sex bots to an entirely new level.

If you're interested in that kind of thing.

[electric_blue68]

14. What could possibly go wrong (eventually?)!!!

🤔

Cylons, The Borg! 😂

[obamanut2012]

15. Ask the Twelve Colonies how that turned out