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Humanoid Robot's Muscles Biomimic Ours

Take a look at this clever use of artificial musculature to animate a humanoid robot:

Fans of Battletech recall that the giant robot "mechs" are powered by an artificial muscle called "Myomer", a fibrous material consisting of microscopically thin tubes filled with a substance (acti-strandular fiber) that contracts when voltage is applied.

See also the entry for Quasi-Muscles (Sham Musculature) from HG Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds.

it is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature of the disks in an elastic sheath; these disks become polarised and drawn closely and powerfully together when traversed by a current of electricity. In this way the curious parallelism to animal motions, which was so striking and disturbing to the human beholder, was attained.

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