Clone Robotics has gone to great lengths to ensure that its “intelligent androids” will be alone
Do robots really need hands thatmuch like humans? Regardless of your opinion, the company's robotic arms look really mesmerizing. A tangle of artificial muscles under synthskin is a topic for a separate discussion.
These muscles – team's own developmentClone. Essentially, these are mesh tubes with balls inside. As the ball, usually driven by a pneumatic or hydraulic pump located outside the muscle, expands, its radial expansion causes the mesh to contract longitudinally.
The company did not want to use bulkyexternal pumps; The team needed a muscle that they could simply apply an electrical current to and cause it to contract in a fairly controlled manner. So they came up with the idea of keeping the balls filled with liquid and passing a powerful heating element through them. When current is applied, the element quickly boils the liquid – in the case of acetaldehyde, increasing its pressure from atmospheric at 20 °C to 6.6 times the pressure at 70 °C.
The company says it will start supplyingkits to customers by the end of 2022, although he has not yet named a price. The next product will be a complete torso with a rigid spine, including 124 muscles of the neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest and upper back.