We love bio-mimicking bots. In recent years scientists have developed robotic versions of fish, snakes, and even cheetahs that not only look like their biological counterparts, but swim, slither, or run like them, too.
Thw newest one is a tiny robot jellyfish that appeared this week in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Built by Caltech and Harvard bioengineers led by Kit Parker, it undulates through the water by expanding and contracting. This isn't the first robot jelly?previously, we covered RoboJelly, the creation of Yonas Tadesse and others at the University of Texas at Dallas. The key advance in Parker's Medusoid is its source of power.
RoboJelly used artificial muscles powered by reactions with oxygen and hydrogen. For this new bot, Medusoid, Parker's team built heart cells from a rat into the very fabric of the machine (the rest of the tiny "jellyfish" is made of silicone). Medusoid floats in salt water, and when the scientists send an electric current through the water, the heart cells contract. This pulls in the jelly's body, creating a power stroke that propels it through the water. Once the cells relax, the jellyfish spreads out again.
The idea was to use the rat heart cells to build "engineered muscle" that could mimic a jellyfish's muscle structure. Next, the researchers want to try to give Medusoid a simple "brain" to go along with its locomotive talents.
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