ETH Zurich builds robots with living muscle actuators

ETH Zurich's Soft Robotics Lab has developed centimeter-scale muscle actuators grown from mouse muscle cells. They let tiny biohybrid robots jump, swim, walk and grasp, with motion improved more than 10 times over previous versions.

• Actuators are grown from mouse muscle cells and anchored to an artificial scaffold via grooves
• Motion performance improved more than 10-fold versus earlier iterations
• Robots walk at up to 6.2 mm/s but move only inside a nutrient solution
• The project is led by Professor Robert Katzschmann, with Aiste Balciunaite as co-lead author