Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ-86011, United States of America.
Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ-86011, United States of America.
Bioinspir Biomim. 2021 Dec 23;17(1). doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/ac3adf.
Interest in emulating the properties of biological muscles that allow for fast adaptability and control in unstructured environments has motivated researchers to develop new soft actuators, often referred to as 'artificial muscles'. The field of soft robotics is evolving rapidly as new soft actuator designs are published every year. In parallel, recent studies have also provided new insights for understanding biological muscles as 'active' materials whose tunable properties allow them to adapt rapidly to external perturbations. This work presents a comparative study of biological muscles and soft actuators, focusing on those properties that make biological muscles highly adaptable systems. In doing so, we briefly review the latest soft actuation technologies, their actuation mechanisms, and advantages and disadvantages from an operational perspective. Next, we review the latest advances in understanding biological muscles. This presents insight into muscle architecture, the actuation mechanism, and modeling, but more importantly, it provides an understanding of the properties that contribute to adaptability and control. Finally, we conduct a comparative study of biological muscles and soft actuators. Here, we present the accomplishments of each soft actuation technology, the remaining challenges, and future directions. Additionally, this comparative study contributes to providing further insight on soft robotic terms, such as biomimetic actuators, artificial muscles, and conceptualizing a higher level of performance actuator named artificial supermuscle. In conclusion, while soft actuators often have performance metrics such as specific power, efficiency, response time, and others similar to those in muscles, significant challenges remain when finding suitable substitutes for biological muscles, in terms of other factors such as control strategies, onboard energy integration, and thermoregulation.
人们对模仿生物肌肉特性的兴趣浓厚，这些特性使生物肌肉能够在非结构化环境中快速适应和控制，这促使研究人员开发出新型的软致动器，通常被称为“人工肌肉”。随着每年都有新的软致动器设计被公布，软机器人领域正在迅速发展。与此同时，最近的研究也为理解生物肌肉作为“活性”材料提供了新的见解，这些材料的可调特性使它们能够快速适应外部干扰。本工作对生物肌肉和软致动器进行了比较研究，重点研究了使生物肌肉成为高度适应性系统的特性。为此，我们简要回顾了最新的软致动技术、它们的致动机制以及从操作角度来看的优缺点。接下来，我们回顾了理解生物肌肉的最新进展。这使我们深入了解肌肉结构、致动机制和建模，但更重要的是，它使我们了解了有助于适应性和控制的特性。最后，我们对生物肌肉和软致动器进行了比较研究。在这里，我们展示了每种软致动技术的成就、仍存在的挑战以及未来的方向。此外，这项比较研究有助于进一步了解软机器人术语，例如仿生致动器、人工肌肉以及构想一种名为人工超级肌肉的具有更高性能水平的致动器。总之，虽然软致动器通常具有类似于肌肉的比功率、效率、响应时间等性能指标，但在寻找生物肌肉的合适替代品时，仍存在着显著的挑战，例如控制策略、板载能量集成和温度调节等方面。
