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Science 1 April 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5718, pp. 63 - 65
DOI: 10.1126/science.1099010
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Perspectives

MATERIALS SCIENCE:
Playing Nature's Game with Artificial Muscles

Ray H. Baughman

Artificial muscles able to match or exceed the remarkable performance of natural muscles are needed for artificial and damaged hearts, artificial limbs, humanoid robots, and bird- or insect-like air vehicles that fly by flapping wings. In his Perspective, Baughman compares the performance of present high-stroke artificial muscles with that of natural muscles and proposes new strategies for improving the artificial muscles. One promising approach is to make an artificial muscle that directly converts the chemical energy in a fuel to mechanical energy.

The author is at the NanoTech Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75083, USA. E-mail: ray. baughman{at}utdallas.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Biomimetic Nano-composite Actuators Based on Carbon Nanotubes and Ionic Polymers.
I.-K. Oh and J.-Y. Jung (2008)
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 19, 305-311
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Fuel-powered artificial muscles..
V. H. Ebron, Z. Yang, D. J. Seyer, M. E. Kozlov, J. Oh, H. Xie, J. Razal, L. J. Hall, J. P. Ferraris, A. G. MacDiarmid, et al. (2006)
Science 311, 1580-1583
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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