Hydrogen Muscles Keep Robots From Sounding Like Robots
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 21 of October , 2009 at 12:54 am
Robots are noisy critters, whether they use servo motors or air power to move their joints . Personally, if I had a robot in my house, I’d insist on it making all of those brrrrzzzzzz noises to keep it from sneaking up on me, but I can understand how some people might prefer to live their robot-assisted lives in quiet ignorance. Doctor Kwang Jin Kim has developed an artificial muscle that’s based on a traditional air powered design, except that it’s powered by hydrogen instead. Hydrogen is not inherently quieter than air, but Dr. Kim has implemented a sort of chemical storage tank for the hydrogen that works silently, taking the place of noisy pumps and compressors.
The chemical storage tanks consists of pellets of a compressed copper and nickel powder. The powder drinks up gaseous hydrogen, effectively storing it as a solid. When the pellets are heated up, they release the stored hydrogen into a conventional air muscle, causing it to expand in width and contract in length, just like your muscles do. The amount of hydrogen released into the muscle can be controlled by variably heating the storage tank, and there are no moving parts, making the entire system silent.
I’m sure it’s going to be a while before we see these muscles anywhere, since quietness is probably not, at this point, worth the cost and complication of replacing an air pump with a fancy hydrogen storage system. Look for this sometime in the future with the release of the Incredible and Amazing Home Robot Version 2.0: now with new Silent Hydromuscles!
[ Dr. Kim's Website ] VIA [ New Scientist ]
Comments (1)
Category: Research
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Comment by Scott
Made Wednesday, 21 of October , 2009 at 3:23 am
Isn’t hydrogen highly explosive? And that’s why Zeppelins… failed?