Empowering artificial muscles with intelligence: recent advancements in materials, designs, and manufacturing

Abstract

Drawing on foundational knowledge of the structure and function of biological muscles, artificial muscles have made remarkable strides over the past decade, achieving performance levels comparable to those of their natural counterparts. However, they still fall short in their lack of inherent intelligence to autonomously adapt to complex and dynamic environments. Consequently, the next frontier for artificial muscles lies in endowing them with advanced intelligence. Herein, recent works aimed at augmenting intelligence in artificial muscles are summarized, focusing on advancements in functional materials, structural designs, and manufacturing techniques. This review emphasizes memory-based intelligence, enabling artificial muscles to execute a range of pre-programmed movements and refresh stored actuation states in response to changing conditions, as well as sensory-based intelligence, which allows them to perceive and respond to environmental changes through sensory feedback. Furthermore, recent applications benefiting from intelligent artificial muscles, including adaptable robotics, biomedical devices, and wearables, are discussed. Finally, we address the remaining challenges in scalability, dynamic reprogramming, and the integration of multi-functional capabilities and discuss future perspectives of augmented intelligent artificial muscles to support further advancements in the field.