Next generation of robots [Archives:2006/943/Community]

By: Syed Rehan Ali
IT Engineer
Nadinka Integrated solutions
Successful development of fuel-powered muscles could be employed in autonomous robots having very long mission capabilities and powerful exoskeletons for military personnel.

Nanotechnology researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) have made chemically powered artificial muscles that are up to 100 times stronger than natural muscles. Fueled by alcohol or hydrogen, the muscles are also able to do 100 times more work per cycle than natural muscles. Dr. Ray H. Baughman, who headed up the project, said that although batteries can be used for autonomous robots, they store too little energy and deliver it at too slow a rate for prolonged or intense activity. The more than 30 times higher energy density obtainable from fuels like alcohol, compared to that for the most advanced batteries, can translate into much longer operational lifetimes without refueling. Baughman explained that one of the new types of artificial muscle his team created functions simultaneously as a fuel cell and a muscle. He described one of the new muscles as having a catalyst-containing carbon nanotube electrode that functioned as both a fuel cell to convert chemical energy to electrical energy and as a super capacitor to store the electrical energy, which it then converts into mechanical energy. “Fuel-powered charge injection in a carbon nanotube electrode produces the dimensional changes needed for actuation due to a combination of quantum mechanical and electrostatic effects present on the nanoscale