Ellen Rumley News Today

Biodegradable artificial muscles advance soft robotics, enabling eco-friendly applications in various industries.

CU Boulder mechanical engineering student Ellen Rumley was part of a robotics club in high school, but she could never get over the clunkiness of rigid, metal machines. Now, she's designing soft robotic actuators that work like animal muscles. They're also completely biodegradable.

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart, Germany, the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz, Austria, and the University of Colorado (CU Boulder), Boulder, USA, have brought sustainability to the forefront of soft robotics.

Scientists in Germany, Austria and the U.S. say their biodegradable artificial muscles could improve the field of soft robotics.