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The concept for Lucy's latest prototype muscle is really simple and potentially very nice indeed: A steam engine's governor gets shorter as it spins faster and the heavy brass balls fly outwards. So could this idea be miniaturised and used to pull on a cable?
The answer is yes, but there are snags. Initial tests were very encouraging, producing a really strong, springy force, extremely reminiscent of a real muscle. But to get the spinners small enough to fit inside Lucy they need to spin very quickly (several thousand RPM). The tiniest inaccuracy is then enough to cause them to vibrate badly, sometimes exploding in a flurry of lead shrapnel! Nevertheless, the idea is really neat: it's very cheap, has very few moving parts, is quite compact, surprisingly powerful (pulls of around 2Kg over a stroke of about 20mm with a 40mm diameter spinner) and very 'biological' in its dynamics. It is also self-damping. It only requires two sensors - one to measure the speed of rotation (which is proportional to the force exerted) and the other to measure the compression of the spinner (a measure of 'muscle length').
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Copyright © 2004 Cyberlife Research Ltd. |
