Atmospheric-Operable 3D Printed Walking Bio-Robot Powered by Muscle-Tissue of Earthworm

Abstract

Muscle-tissue of earthworms is an excellent actuator due to its membranous structure, strong force, short response time, and controllability. In this paper, we first investigated the output force, control property including stimulation voltage, stimulation frequency, and duty. Secondly, we designed, fabricated, and demonstrated an atmospheric-operable walking robot by using a muscle-tissue of earthworms. The maximum walking speed was about 0.56 mm/s, which is about 2 times faster than other types of bio actuated walker. The maximum atmospheric driven time was over 45 minutes. These demonstrated results indicated that the muscle-tissue of earthworm has a high potential for using as a biological micro bio-actuator for multiple purposes.