Design of Cultured Muscle Actuator Based on Muscle Contraction Model

Abstract

In order to develop a new kind of actuator made of physiological tissue muscle, the initial task as the purpose of this study is to design the minimum muscle weight required to generate specific contractile force. In this study, gastrocnemius muscle of toad was subjected to external electrical stimulation signal. Utilizing the muscle contraction model, with electrical stimulation signal as input, it shows that muscle contraction can be simulated by adjusting specific parameter of the model. Initially, the relationship between muscle contraction model and muscle weight was revealed by experimentally stimulating muscles of different sizes under several kinds of stimulus conditions. Then, we successfully designed muscle weight required to get the contractile force expected based on the muscle contraction model.