Development of Bio-actuator Mimicking Pupillary Sphincter Muscle

Abstract

Recently, the use of cultured skeletal muscle tissue for actuators has been studied, but such actuators have weak contractile force. Conventional three-dimensional cultured bio-actuators improve contractility by utilizing the linear direction of muscle fiber extension. In this study, however, pupillary sphincter muscle was mimicked by controlling the orientation of muscle fibers using pillars. Experimental results showed that pupil contractile movement was realized and that the proposed device improves the contractile force. In the future, we plan to investigate the mechanism of electrical stimulation to the muscle tissue to use this device as an actuator.