Shaping the future of artificial muscle for robotic actuation (SHAPE)

The primary function of skeletal muscle is to produce, control, or prevent movement in vertebrate animals. To fulfil such roles, a muscle needs to generate force, and to do so the muscle must change its shape. Given this fundamental importance of muscle shape changes in force production, and the well-known importance of geometrical shapes in biology, it is surprising that we know very little about the functional role of muscle shapes or how muscles change shape during movement. This large gap in our understanding of muscle function is primarily due to a lack of methods to experimentally measure 3D whole muscle shape changes during contraction. A limited understanding of natural biological systems also limits transferability to wearable and robotic devices that often function optimally when mimicking biological “products” (i.e., humans and other animals) developed through millennia. In particular, biomimicry of muscle-tendon systems has previously resulted in considerable breakthroughs in the field of robotics and bioengineering. In this project, I seek to develop novel techniques to measure human and animal muscle shape changes and start new, and strengthen existing collaborations to advance wearable (exoskeleton) and bio-inspired robotic devices.