Muscle fiber with magnetic ends for stretching, manipulation, and evaluation

Abstract

Bio-actuators are attracting interest as they are expected to enhance the performance of the robot by introducing the advantages of the living organism to the robot system. Along with the progress in bio-actuators, the microfiber structure is considered to be one of the optimal candidates. However, it has been difficult to achieve the manipulations to the microfiber without the use of jigs with anchors inserted into the tissue, which will cause damage to tissue structure due to the stress concentration. To overcome this difficulty, we fabricated magnetic ends on both sides of the microfiber, therefore the magnetic force could be used for balance shrinkage, fixation, transportation, and evaluation of muscle microfibers.