Taking one step closer to Futurama.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Methanol-powered muscles start to flex.

Methanol-powered artificial muscles have been created by researchers aiming to create battery-free robotic limbs and prosthetics.

"One day you could find yourself sitting in a bar next to a humanoid robot, who is taking a shot of vodka to give himself the energy to go to work," jokes Ray Baughman, a nanotechnologist at the University of Texas at Dallas, US.

"The most athletic robots around today are chained to a power source, so they can't move about freely," he explains. In an effort to remove the robots from their battery-shackles, Baughman and colleagues have designed two types of artificial muscle that also act as fuel cells – converting chemical energy to mechanical movement.

The first type of muscle is made from a nickel-titanium shape-memory wire coated in a platinum catalyst. When fumes of methanol, hydrogen and oxygen pass over the platinum coating, they react, releasing heat that warms the wire, making it contract. When the flow of fuel is stopped, the wire expands and returns to its original length. The wire muscle can generate 100 times the force of a natural muscle of the same size, says Baughman.

Energy saver

The team's second artificial muscle is made from sheets of carbon nanotubes, coated in a catalyst. It is not yet as powerful as the wire muscle, but could potentially overtake it, he says.

As the fuel reacts with oxygen above the surface of the nanotube sheet, it releases a charge that make the sheet expand. The big advantage of the nanotube muscle is that it can also act as a capacitor, storing up electric energy it does not immediately need for later use, Baughman explains.

The team are now working out exactly how to control the flow of fuel in practical prosthetic applications. Baughman believes that people with limited finger or arm mobility could control an artificial muscle using very slight movements to open and shut a valve to release the fuel. A second challenge for the group is ensuring that the muscles do not overheat as they contract, adds Baughman.

“It is very clever that the muscle itself is the fuel cell,” says Siegmar Roth, an artificial muscle expert at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. “This will be very good for medical applications because you can’t put high voltages into humans, but these work on low voltages.”

Reference: Science (vol 311, p 1580)

The part I emphasized made me smile . . . but really, this has the potential to be very, very cool.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I always liked the gastrobot, which was a small, couple metre long train that ate anything organic and used it for energy, just like any real macro-organism.

Artificial muscle is promising technology, and finding a way to power them without a massive increase in storage for power cells is a good thing to be doing. Should be far better than hydraulics, pneumatics and servos which are vastly overcomplicated systems and clunky or noisy.

[Cos Dashit]

Great... organic robots. I'm all for this for prosthetics and all, but I hope they don't push the envelope and start making full androids with this stuff.

[drachefly]

The fuel is organic, but these robots are not.

[wolveraptor]

Why not? That would be the coolest thing ever. Other than the fact that bipedalism isn't really that efficient. Maybe they could have a limb configuration like that of centaurs?

[Molyneux]

Why not? That would be the coolest thing ever. Other than the fact that bipedalism isn't really that efficient. Maybe they could have a limb configuration like that of centaurs?

That would be good for straight-out speed and possibly cargo hauling, but not really efficient otherwise. I'm a fan of a basic 'spidertaur' configuration - four legs at the four points of a square with the body at the center.

[Darth Yoshi]

So we're getting droid supersoldiers rather than clone supersoldiers. That's still pretty cool.

[Admiral Valdemar]

First of all, droid is a trademark of Lucasfilm, so get your chequebook out.

Secondly, we're a long, long way off getting anything anywhere near human ability physically speaking, letalone cognitively. I'd bet smart money on clone soldiers before real-life Ah-nulds start crossing the battlefield.

Besides, organic robot is a bit of an oxymoron, no? They have cooler terms for then, like replicant.

[Molyneux]

First of all, droid is a trademark of Lucasfilm, so get your chequebook out.

Secondly, we're a long, long way off getting anything anywhere near human ability physically speaking, letalone cognitively. I'd bet smart money on clone soldiers before real-life Ah-nulds start crossing the battlefield.

Besides, organic robot is a bit of an oxymoron, no? They have cooler terms for then, like replicant.

..."droid" is a shortening of android, a pre-existing word. If Lucas wants to trademark that, he can fucking fight for it, and he'll lose.

[Winston Blake]

First of all, droid is a trademark of Lucasfilm, so get your chequebook out.

..."droid" is a shortening of android, a pre-existing word. If Lucas wants to trademark that, he can fucking fight for it, and he'll lose.

IIRC BattleTech fought him on it, and he won.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You were saying?

I'd stick with robot, it sounds cooler, or maybe just android then.

[Molyneux]

You were saying?

I'd stick with robot, it sounds cooler, or maybe just android then.

Well, fuck him!
I'm reasonably certain I've encountered the word 'droid' in other SF predating Star Wars; would that invalidate the trademark?

[Admiral Valdemar]

It would, but I'd be interested in what you've read that hasn't been picked up by those that branded this a trademark. Go for it though.

[Ryushikaze]

If you wanna call them droids, call them android and truncuate- IE: 'droid, not droid.

That way you can simply call it colloquialism.