Direct force measurement of artificial muscle printed from motor proteins

Abstract

A printable artificial muscle assembled from motor proteins had been proposed and showed great potential in micro-robotics. This paper presents a new methodology for the direct measurement of the contraction force produced by such artificial muscles. Artificial muscles were patterned by UV layer scanning in a semi-closed micro-chamber, and the contraction force was continuously measured by a lengthened micro-force sensing probe. An experiment was performed and results proved the ability of the proposed method for quantitative measurement of artificial muscles. This approach might help us characterize the mechanical properties of artificial muscles and lay a foundation for further application in robotics.