A “ROBOT heart” that can pump “robot blood” around the body of a machine has been created.
Researchers at Cornell University and the US Army Research Laboratory just developed the device that could make machines more life-like.
Robotic hearts could be useful in small soft robots[/caption]
The researchers have explained their device in a new paper published in the PNAS journal.
Cornell engineer Rob Shepherd said: “We’ve had robot blood that we published from our group, and now we have robot hearts.
“The combination of the two will make more lifelike machines.”
However, the new heart isn’t the answer to the Tin Man’s prayers.
Instead, the team hopes to put the hearts in “soft robots”, which are made from squishy materials.
Shepherd’s Organic Robotics Lab has previously worked on soft robotic designs like sensor “skin” and small machines that can walk, crawl, swim and sweat.
Such robots can be tiny and used for medical reasons.
Scientists think a robot with its own circulatory system could move around with less human input.
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That could make some medical procedures less invasive or make some robots more cost-effective.
A robotic heart could help them store energy and power themselves.
The robot heart doesn’t look like a human heart and isn’t being pitched as an organ replacement.
Despite this, the man-made pump does act like a human heart.
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Professor Shepherd said: “These distributed soft pumps operate much more like human hearts and the arteries from which the blood is delivered.”
The fake heart has been demonstrated in an experiment and scientists hope to customize it for different types of robots.
