The Cyborg Stingray

A tiny stingray robot has been created, driven by living cells of heart muscle tissues

DailyTechInfo based on ECN Magazine: Stingray Soft Robot Could Lead To Bio-Inspired Robotics

A group of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles, led by Professor of bioengineering Ali Khademhosseini, has created a tiny soft robot that is driven by living cells of heart muscle tissues and which mimics the biomechanics of the movements of a sea stingray. This technology can give rise to a new direction of bio-inspired robotics, regenerative medicine and medical diagnostics.

The rather simple structure of the body of the sea stingray, its smooth shapes and sufficiently large maneuverability provided by the fin-wings make them an ideal model for building various bioelectromechanical and robotic systems. The tiny stingray robot, which is only 10 millimeters long, consists of four layers. The main layer is a layer of living heart muscle tissue cells, which are clamped into a "framework" of two layers of specialized biocompatible material. And the fourth and last layer is a flexible layer of a thin metal electrode.

When a small electrical potential is applied to the electrodes, this leads to a contraction of the heart muscle tissue cells, so that the robot can "flap" its fins-wings in the same way as its living prototype does.

"The development of such bio–inspired systems will allow in the future to create robotic devices containing both tissues of biological origin and conventional electronics," says Professor Hademosseini, "And such tiny biorobots can, in turn, become the basis of new ways to combat various diseases. In particular, they will be able to "repair" the heart tissues affected by a heart attack, and much more."

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