July 5, 2018 – Today’s robots use motors and actuators to operate. But University of Hong Kong researchers have created an actuating material made from nickel hydroxide-oxyhydroxide that could give robots the ability only found in mammalian skeletal muscles. The material is wirelessly powered by low-intensity electricity or visible light and can give a robotic arm the capability to exert a force of up to 3,000 times its own weight. The material can even harvest energy from the heat and humidity in its surroundings.
With nickel being the prime component in this new material, and electro-deposition the method to create it, it is relatively inexpensive and easy to produce. It also means that the material can be used on almost any size robotic device from nanobots to large-scale industrial robots.
You can read about their invention in the May 30, 2018 edition of the journal Science Robotics. The research article is entitled “Light-stimulated actuators based on nickel hydroxide-oxyhydroxide.”
Watch the YouTube video showing how the material works when exposed to an energy source.
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