238 results about "Muscle material" patented technology

A biological function assist apparatus composed an electromechanically-based system wrapped in protective coating and controlled by a controller, which also provides power to the electromechanically-based system. The electromechanically-based system can be formed as a mesh using MEMS or a larger electromechanically grid and wrapped around a failing heart, or the electromechanical system can be formed in a circle forming an artificial valve (e.g., sphincter). The electromechanically-based system can operate as a bone-muscle interface, thereby functioning in place of tendons.

Novel gels and articles are formed from one or more copolymers having at least one poly(ethylene) components and high levels of one or more plasticizers, said gels having an amount of crystallinity, glassy components, and selected plasticizers sufficient to achieve improvements in one or more physical properties including improved crack propagation resistance, improved tear resistance, improved resistance to fatigue, resistance to catastrophic failure, and exhibiting high strain under elongations not obtainable in amorphous gels which high strain making the gel suitable for use as film layers for artificial muscles.

The present invention seeks to introduce a new delivery system, interactive platform and controller compliment for an allied touchscreen media; with said media particularly comprising repository-sourced mobile game applications configured for native operation. Mapping systems are dynamic and include an interface for user manipulation of immersive, 3-D holographic imaging modalities to advance input in a video-game environment. A series of specialty-input controllers for interaction with said touchscreen media are also advanced by the inventor; including those designed for remote and mappable manipulation of an actionable sensor input where salient to the input dynamics of an engaged gaming title. A user worn artificial muscle interface that reacts to game events are also advanced by the inventor.

The present invention relates to a gripping device that consists of four artificial muscle rings arranged in parallel. A grasper is placed in the middle of the rings. Sequential activation of the rings produces a peristaltic motion that moves the grasper back and forth within the rings. By activating the grasper appropriately, it can grab, ingest, and move soft and irregular material from one side of the lumen formed by the rings to the other side.

New artificial muscles and actuators, that are operated by hydrogen gas as working fluid stored interstitially in metal hydrides as a hydrogen sponge. These artificial muscles and actuators are operated both electrically and thermally. The artificial muscles and actuators have fast response, are compact/light-weight, are noiseless, and produce high-power density. They can be used for biomedical, space, defense, micro-machines, and industrial applications.

A fluid contact surface actuation system for a vehicle, including a first fluid contact surface constructed and arranged to act against a first fluid passing over the first fluid contact surface; and a first fluid actuator coupled to the first fluid contact surface to move the first fluid contact surface between a first position and a second position to enable control of the vehicle in a predetermined manner, the first fluid actuator having a first resilient bladder that receives a second fluid such that pressure of the second fluid moves the first bladder between a contracted configuration and an expanded configuration.

A multi-combination push type flexible bionic robotic fish comprises a head, a body, a tail and fins. The multi-combination push type flexible bionic robotic fish is characterized in that the body comprises a flexible shaft, flexible skeletons and body artificial muscles with a flexible electrode, the flexible skeletons are of an annular frame structure and is fixed to the flexible shaft, the body artificial muscles are symmetrically arranged between the flexible skeletons in a tensioning state, when the artificial muscles on one side are powered on, the tensile stress is reduced, and the artificial muscles on the other side contracts, so that the flexible shaft and the body bends continuously, and are matched with the tail and the fins to form the body/fin push mode; the head and the tail are arranged at the two ends of the flexible shaft respectively and are connected with the first flexible skeleton and the last flexible skeleton respectively. The flexible structure and flexible drive are adopted, the multi-combination push type flexible bionic robotic fish simulates the motion function of bionic fishes to form gradient flexible shape changing of the whole robotic fish, the flexible body/tail fin push mode and the flexible middle fin/pair-fin push mode are achieved, and movement is flexible.

The present invention comprises a user-friendly, soft and resilient, biomimetic (mimicking biological entities) lower limb support outfits that can be worn externally by people to improve and enhance lower limb, legs and knees performance in sports, daily dynamic activities and medical rehabilitation/physical therapy. More specifically, the present invention relates to an outfit, which allows a portion of the upper limb's quasi-static weight and dynamic weight due to impact forces to be excluded from being transmitted to the lower limb, legs, quadriceps and hamstrings muscles and knees by directly transmitting them to the ankles, footwear and/or the ground, through soft elastic columnar quasi-legs that are equipped with smart biomimetic materials such as shape memory materials and artificial muscles such as synthetic and/or ionic polymeric muscles and provide lower limb support function by buckling and bending in accordance with the dynamic maneuvering of the user. The said lower limb performance enhancing outfit is encapsulated by user-friendly fabric means for easy wear. The upper portion of the outfit can be in the form of a sports short worn by the user and encapsulating the buttocks support plates.

An artificial hand with multiple functions, no error operation and no complication is composed of such artificial units as finger bones, metacarpal bones, ulna, radius, muscle tendons, tendon sheaths, slide mechanism, muscles and skin. It can be connected to the crippled end of human radius by screw and its artificial muscle tendons can be linked with relative ones of human body by stitch.

An actuator includes a holder having a movement hole, a lens barrel which moves within the movement hole, and driving means for driving the lens barrel. Each of the driving means is provided with driving members composed of an artificial muscle. The lens barrel can be suitably moved within the movement hole by making the driving members perform a predetermined operation.

This invention describes a method for producing a novel, superior electroactive material and electroactive actuator, which act as artificial muscle, tendon, fascia, perimysium, epimysium, and skin that wrinkles and with the preferred movement of contraction, comprising ion-containing, cross-linked electroactive material(s); solvent(s); electrolyte(s); plasma treated electrode(s); attachments to levers or other objects; and coating(s). The composition and electrode configuration of the electroactive material of the electroactive actuator can be optimized so that contraction occurs when activated by electricity, when allowed to relax back to its original conformation, when the polarity of the electrodes is reversed, or a combination of these movements, such as antagonistic pairs. The electroactive material itself or the electroactive actuator may be used individually or grouped to produce movement when activated by electricity. This invention can provide for human-like motion, durability, toughness, and strength.

Provided herein is an artificial muscle capable of being miniaturized, realizing precision movement, and performing selective relaxation/contraction deformation according to the power output necessary in the muscle, the muscle including a first operation unit that includes electro-active polymer where relaxation-deformation occurs based on electric energy being applied; a heating unit that generates heat energy based on the electric being applied; a second operation unit that has a yarn structure and where contraction-deformation occurs based on the heat energy generated in the heating unit; and a control unit that applies electric energy to the first operation unit and the heating unit.

Fuel-powered actuators are described wherein actuation is a consequence of electrochemical processes, chemical processes, or combinations thereof. These fuel-powered actuators include artificial muscles and actuators in which actuation is non-mechanical. The actuators range from large actuators to microscopic and nanoscale devices.

An actuation system for trailing-edge flap control suitable for use in reducing vibration in rotorcraft blades as well as primary flight control and noise mitigation employing an antagonistic pair of fluidic artificial muscles (FAMs) located and operated inside the rotor blade. The FAMs are connected to a force transfer mechanism such as an inboard bellcrank and engaged to an outboard bellcrank by one or more linkages running spanwise out through the spar. The outboard mechanism translates the spanwise linkage motion into chordwise motion of a flap control rod which is connected to the trailing-edge flap. A torsion rod flexure (TRF) device is included connecting the trailing-edge flap to the blade. The actuation system can produce large flap deflections at relatively high operating frequencies for vibration reduction and noise cancellation and is capable of larger flap deflections at lower operating frequencies for embedded primary control of the rotorcraft.

The invention discloses an artificial muscle stent model as well as a preparation device and method thereof. The model comprises a lower stent, an upper stent and a cellular bundle layer, wherein the cellular bundle layer, the upper stent and the lower stent are distributed from top to bottom sequentially. The artificial muscle stent model prepared by the preparation device with the preparation method has the advantages of uniform cell arrangement, high cell survival rate and high printing precision.

The invention belongs to the technical field of material science and soft robot driving, and particularly relates to a preparation method of large-strain quick-response electrothermal driving carbon nanotube fiber artificial muscles. The invention provides a preparation method of fiber artificial muscles by mixing a variable hydrophilic-hydrophobic polymer and carbon nanotube fibers, and the method is applied to the field of intelligent robots. The preparation method comprises the steps of preparing spinnable carbon nanotube fibers, and compounding the spinnable carbon nanotube fibers with thevariable hydrophilic-hydrophobic polymer through a composite doping method to prepare quick-response composite carbon nanotube fiber artificial muscles; and controlling the stretching and retractingof the quick-response composite carbon nanotube fiber artificial muscles in an electric heating driving mode, and introducing water mist into the quick-response composite carbon nanotube fiber artificial muscles, so that the purpose of large-strain quick response is achieved.

The invention discloses a preparation method of a ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin residue freeze-dried powder standard sample in carp muscle, which takes the carp as a research object to research a carp muscle material object standard sample containing ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin of certain concentration in a breeding mode of adding target medicine. The key production control technology of the material object standard sample disclosed by the invention is mastered and comprises the control of content level, evenness, stability, constant value and the like, and the standard sample is produced and prepared in a standardization and scale mode. The standard sample is used for detection quality control and detection capability evaluation for residue of veterinary drug in animal-derived food and has an important significance on food safety detection.

The invention provides muscle joint, in particular to a modular flexible artificial muscle joint, and belongs to the technical field of flexible robots. By adoption of the modular flexible artificialmuscle joint, the problems that existing flexible drive joints are complex in structure and large in size and cannot be combined easily are solved. The modular flexible artificial muscle joint comprises a front module port, a rear module port, an elastic supporting beam, two installation flange assemblies and N artificial muscles, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to three, one installation flange assembly is fixedly installed at one end of the front module port, and the other installation flange assembly is fixedly installed at one end of the rear module port; the two ends of theelastic supporting beam are fixedly installed on the two installation flange assemblies correspondingly; and the N artificial muscles are arranged between the two installation flange assemblies, and the two ends of each artificial muscle are fixedly connected with the two installation flange assemblies correspondingly.

The invention discloses an electrochemically-driven artificial muscle fiber as well as a preparation method and application thereof. The electrochemically-driven artificial muscle fiber comprises at least one strand of muscle yarn, wherein the muscle yarn is at least obtained by sequentially pre-crimping, stranding and twisting a plurality of carbon nanotube narrow bands until a uniform spiral structure is formed, or the muscle yarn is at least obtained by twisting a single carbon nanotube narrow band until the uniform spiral structure is formed. According to the preparation method of the electrochemically-driven artificial muscle fiber, the plurality of carbon nanotube narrow bands are pre-crimped, stranded and twisted to obtain the muscle yarn, or the carbon nanotube narrow bands are directly twisted to obtain the muscle yarn; the obtained muscle yarn has a spiral or threaded structure, so that the specific surface area of the carbon nanotube narrow bands is increased; a large numberof micro-nano pore passages are introduced into the artificial muscle fiber, and the energy density and the driving stroke of the artificial muscle fiber are improved in a bunching or stranding mode.

The invention relates to the general field of electrical activation of non-biological artificial muscles, such as ionic polymeric synthetic artificial muscles, by means of action potentials produced by a biological nerve, such as mammalian sciatic nerve. This invention demonstrates how to stimulate and activate a non-biological muscle such as an ionic polymeric metal composite (IPMC) electro-active artificial muscle with the biological action potential generated by a mammalian nerve such as a rat sciatic nerve. The said invention further presents settings to generate optimal movement and force in artificial muscle due to the application of a nerve action potential. The invention uses the sciatic nerve to generate an action potential, which is subsequently amplified and applied to a cantilever sample of an electro-active ionic polymeric artificial muscle to cause it to bend, flex, and twitch. The sciatic nerve, in this invention, is stimulated by a separate signal to cause it to generate an action potential in the range of hundreds of μV, which is recorded by the electrodes attached to the nerve. These electrodes carry the action potential to an amplifier to amplify it to between 10's of Volts and subsequently are attached to the ionic polymeric artificial muscle to cause it to flex and twitch. Different frequencies of stimulation are tried to optimize the motion and force generated by the polymeric artificial muscles.

The invention provides a double-acting hydraulic artificial muscle linear reciprocating actuator which comprises hydraulic artificial muscles, a pressure-isolating sealing linkage device and a guidingdeflector; each hydraulic artificial muscle comprises a closed end connector, a rubber pipe and a water passing end connector; the center of an inverted cone tooth surface portion of the closed end connector is provided with a cylindrical blind hole in an axial direction; the center of the water passing end connector is sequentially provided with a water passing hole A and a water passing hole Bin the axial direction from outside to inside; the pressure-isolating sealing linkage device comprises a cylinder linkage device, a pressure-isolating sealing main body and a sealing ring; the cylinder linkage device extends into a through hole of the pressure-isolating sealing main body; each of the two ends of the pressure-isolating sealing linkage device is connected with one hydraulic artificial muscle; the guide deflector is provided with a diversion trench, a diversion hole A, a diversion hole B, a diversion hole C and a diversion hole D; the diversion hole A, the diversion hole B, the diversion hole C and the diversion hole D communicate with each other; and the two ends of the cylinder linkage device extend into the diversion hole D of the guide deflector through clearance fit. Thedouble-acting hydraulic artificial muscle linear reciprocating actuator provided by the invention solves various problems caused by a complex structure of a hydraulic system of an existing hydraulicactuator.

This invention relates to a non-supported (or free standing) cross linked polymer film obtainable by initiating the polymerization of one or several monomers at an interphase. The interphase may be between two immiscible liquids or at a liquid-gas, solid-gas or solid-liquid interphase. The polymer may be used to facilitate chemical reactions, for separation of substances, as a chromatographic stationary phase, as an adsorbent, in sensors or actuators. It may also be used for drug delivery, as a responsive valve or in artificial muscles. The invention also relates to a method for producing thin film polymers, wherein controlled radical polymerization (CRP) is used to produce a thin film cross-linked polymer at an interface where one of the phases (liquid, solid or gas) can be removed after polymerization and be replaced with another phase (liquid, solid or gas).