SNU Prof. Sung-Hoon Ahn’s Team

Develops High-Speed Artificial Muscle Microactuators,

Stronger and Faster Than Real Muscles


- Published on the cover of Small
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▲ High-speed artificial muscle fiber actuators on the cover of international journal Small Vol.14, No.23

 

On June 18^th, 2018, Seoul National University’s College of Engineering (Dean: Kookheon Char) announced that a research team (First author: Dr. Hyun-Taek Lee, post-doctoral researcher) led by Professor Sung-Hoon Ahn of Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering successfully developed high-speed microscale actuators that can be utilized as artificial muscle fibers.

 

The team developed microscale actuators that are similar in thickness to myofibrils by using shape memory alloys (SMA) with microscale skeletal structure. Typical animal muscles consist of muscle fibers which are as thin as a single human hair; a muscle fiber contains myofibrils that have 1/100 of the thickness of a single human hair.

 

Even after an external force changes its shape, shape memory alloy returns to its original shape when the temperature increases. The team created grids that have 1/100 of the thickness of a human hair from nickel-titanium shape memory alloys, and used them in making microscale actuators.

 

Microscale actuators flatten and curl up according to change in temperature. They are also capable of high-speed actuation up to 1600Hz, only using a small amount of energy such as that of a laser light, and can change up to 60% of its original length. This is a vast improvement from previous shape memory alloys that have slow actuation speed with the strain rate of only about 6%.

 

Prof. Ahn explained that “the microactuators are similar in size to myofibrils of real muscles, but are twice as powerful” and that they can be “utilized in making artificial muscle fibers of robots or actuators.”

 

The research was published on the cover of the international journal Small on June 7^th. (Title: ‘Shape Memory Alloy(SMA) based microscale actuators with 60% deformation rate and 1.6 kHz actuation speed’).

 

The research was supported by the Mid-career Research Program and Advanced Research Center Program (SRC) of National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, in addition to the Industry Core Technology Development Program of Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

 

 

[참고자료]

 

1. Link to Small: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/16136829/2018/14/23

 

2. Video of high-speed artificial muscle fiber actuator made from SMA: See attached file


SNU Engineering News: http://eng.snu.ac.kr/node/16037 

Yonhap News: http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/bulletin/2018/06/18/0200000000AKR20180618062500004.HTML?input=1195m