Technology Zurich researchers develop novel artificial muscles
Zurich researchers have developed new types of artificial muscles with ultrasound propulsion. In the future, they could be used, for example, to navigate surgical robots through the body and transport medication precisely to a desired location inside the body.
29.10.2025, 17:00
SDA
However, it will be at least another five to seven years before these artificial muscles are actually used, as Daniel Ahmed from ETH Zurich emphasized in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. Ahmed and his research team presented the new artificial muscles on Wednesday evening in the scientific journal "Nature".
The artificial muscles consist of materials in which thousands of tiny vesicles of different sizes are embedded. When ultrasound waves hit the bubbles, they begin to vibrate. This deforms the material.
According to Ahmed, a concept known from guitars has been used to control the material. "Just as the thicker strings on a guitar produce lower frequencies and the thinner ones higher, the bubbles in the artificial muscle are activated by different ultrasound frequencies depending on their size," says the researcher. This enables the artificial muscles to produce complex and coordinated deformations that allow the muscle to perform movements such as bending, grasping or even swimming.
Tests on pig hearts and fish larvae
For the study, Ahmed and his colleagues tested the muscle on zebrafish larvae, for example: in experiments, they were able to successfully hold on to live zebrafish larvae without damaging the delicate little animals. In further tests, artificial muscles were combined to imitate the pectoral fins of a ray. These "ray robots" can be activated with ultrasound and thus imitate the wave-like swimming movement of their models.
In experiments, they have also placed such an artificial muscle as a kind of plaster on a pig's heart. In future, this could be used to deliver medication to specific areas - such as a tumor in the bladder. According to the researcher, it could also be used to stimulate tissue.
Compared to previous artificial muscles, the new artificial muscle works without wires and uses ultrasound technology already established in medicine, as the US researchers Joseph Rufo and Tony Jun Huang emphasized in a commentary on the study published in the same journal. These are major advantages. However, according to the two US researchers, some improvements still need to be made before such a muscle can be used.
