ArticleJournal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation2004
A swimming robot actuated by living muscle tissue.
Article in Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Biointegrative Design (BinD): An Interdisciplinary Paradigm for Sustainable Biohybrid Systems.Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ) · 2026Article
- Analyzing Muscle Contraction Dynamics Through Continuous Vector Segmentation and Tracking.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Article
- Neural reservoir control of a bio-hybrid soft arm.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- A myoneural actuator with engineered biophysics for implantable biohybrid systems.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Ethics and responsibility in biohybrid robotics research.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- 3D Co-Printing and Substrate Geometry Influence the Differentiation of C2C12 Skeletal Myoblasts.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The Interplay of Biomimetics and Biomechatronics.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- An Electrical Stimulation Culture System for Daily Maintenance-Free Muscle Tissue Production.Cyborg and bionic systems (Washington, D.C.) · 2021Article
- Emergence of functional neuromuscular junctions in an engineered, multicellular spinal cord-muscle bioactuator.APL bioengineering · 2020Article
- Modular Fabrication of Intelligent Material-Tissue Interfaces for Bioinspired and Biomimetic Devices.Progress in materials science · 2019Article
- Electrically Driven Microengineered Bioinspired Soft Robots.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2018Article
- Organismal Engineering: Towards a Robotic Taxonomic Key for Devices Using Organic Materials.Science robotics · 2017Article
- Cardiac Muscle-cell Based Actuator and Self-stabilizing Biorobot - PART 1.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2017Article
- Cardiac Muscle Cell-based Actuator and Self-stabilizing Biorobot - Part 2.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2017Article
- Aligned carbon nanotube-based flexible gel substrates for engineering bio-hybrid tissue actuators.Advanced functional materials · 2015Article
- Three-dimensionally printed biological machines powered by skeletal muscle.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2014Article
- Isolation and maintenance-free culture of contractile myotubes from Manduca sexta embryos.PloS one · 2012Article
- Photolithographic patterning of C2C12 myotubes using vitronectin as growth substrate in serum-free medium.Biotechnology progressArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Biomechatronics is the integration of biological components with artificial devices, in which the biological component confers a significant functional capability to the system, and the artificial component provides specific cellular and tissue interfaces that promote the maintenance and functional adaptation of the biological component. Based upon functional performance, muscle is potentially an excellent mechanical actuator, but the larger challenge of developing muscle-actuated, biomechatronic devices poses many scientific and engineering challenges. As a demonstratory proof of concept, we designed, built, and characterized a swimming robot actuated by two explanted frog semitendinosus muscles and controlled by an embedded microcontroller. Using open loop stimulation protocols, the robot performed basic swimming maneuvers such as starting, stopping, turning (turning radius ~400 mm) and straight-line swimming (max speed >1/3 body lengths/second). A broad spectrum antibiotic/antimycotic ringer solution surrounded the muscle actuators for long term maintenance, ex vivo. The robot swam for a total of 4 hours over a 42 hour lifespan (10% duty cycle) before its velocity degraded below 75% of its maximum. The development of functional biomechatronic prototypes with integrated musculoskeletal tissues is the first critical step toward the long term objective of controllable, adaptive and robust biomechatronic robots and prostheses.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.