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Origami-Inspired Artificial muscles can lift 1000x their weight

1,526 views · Published 28 November 2017 · 2:29 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: Rajamanickam Antonimuthu · 2017 · Science & Technology

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Researchers at Harvard and MIT have  created origami-inspired artificial muscles that add strength to soft robots, allowing them to lift objects that are up to 1,000 times their own weight using only air or water pressure.


Specifically, one of the team’s 2.6-gram muscles can lift a 3-kilogram object - which is the equivalent of a duck lifting a car.  A single muscle can be constructed within ten minutes using materials that cost less than $1, making them cheap and easy to test and iterate.

These muscles can be powered by a vacuum, a feature that makes them safer than most of the other artificial muscles currently being tested.


These artificial muscles are fast, light-weight, and powerful, and could be used for miniature medical devices, deployable structures, or wearable robotics.

Video Source:  Wyss Institute

Credit: Shuguang Li / Wyss Institute at Harvard University

News Sources:
https://wyss.harvard.edu/artificial-muscles-give-soft-robots-superpowers/
https://www.csail.mit.edu/node/3088

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