一种骨骼肌驱动的类弹簧生物混合游泳机器人

A spring-shaped biohybrid swimmer powered by engineered skeletal muscle

由活性生物体和软材料骨架构成的生物混合机器人能够响应外部激励并且智能地应对复杂环境,受到越来越多的关注,已成为机器人领域的研究热点和学术前沿.本文构建了一种骨骼肌驱动的类弹簧生物混合游泳机器人,它在电刺激作用下可以实现单向游动.该生物混合游泳机器人由类弹簧软骨架、环状骨骼肌生物软体驱动器和薄膜鳍结构组成.系统的实验研究表明,所培养的环状骨骼肌生物软体驱动器在电刺激下可产生较大的收缩变形和主动收缩力,所组装制备的类弹簧生物混合游泳机器人在电刺激下可在液体环境中实现单向游动前进.这些结果将为设计复杂的生物混合机器人提供科学依据,未来在药物输送、原位活检等医疗健康领域具有重要应用前景.

Biohybrid machine comprising living tissues and soft structures can intelligently respond to external stimuli and environments,and has attracted increasing attention,particularly in academia.It has become the research highlight and the academic frontier in the area of robotics.In this paper,a spring-shaped biohybrid swimmer powered by engineered skeletal muscle is developed.The biohybrid swimmer features three components:a spring-shaped soft skeleton,an annular soft bio-actuator,and a thin fin.Systematic experimental investigations revealed that the cultured annular soft bio-actuator can yield relatively large contraction deformation and active contraction force,which are necessary for developing biohybrid machines.The proposed spring-shaped biohybrid swimmer can swim toward the designed direction at a small speed.These results pave the scientific foundation to design a class of more complex biohybrid machines and systems with potential applications in health and biomedicine such as drug delivery,in situ biopsy,etc.