Translator: Shirley ๑乛v乛๑ Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
So, I don't like doing the dishes.
(Laughter)
I also don't like doing laundry or dusting
or really any of those adult things that adults have to do
until we make our kids do them.
(Laughter)
I'm still hoping for a better solution:
something like Rosie, the maid, from the 1960s cartoon The Jetsons.
Rosie was the Jetsons' personal multi-purpose, in-home robot.
She would safely sweep around the home,
take care of the household
and even act as an extra parent to the kids.
Rosie could do it all.
Rosie's so exciting
because she is a human-like robot, or an android,
that can perform complex tasks in dynamic environments,
such as cleaning up a messy home.
People have been dreaming up robotic solutions like Rosie
for many decades.
But here we are,
surrounded by some of the greatest technological advances,
and we don't have a Rosie yet.
Why don't we have anything that comes even close?
In 2015, 25 teams from around the world
competed to build robots for disaster response
that could perform a number of tasks,
such as using a power tool,
working on uneven terrain and driving a car.
That all sounds impressive, and it is.
But look at the body of the winning robot, HUBO.
Here, HUBO is trying to get out of a car.
And keep in mind,
the video is sped up three times.
(Laughter)
HUBO, from team KAIST out of Korea, is a state-of-the-art robot
with impressive capabilities,
But this body doesn't look all that different
from robots we've seen a few decades ago.
If you look at the other robots in the competition,
their movements also still look, well, very robotic.
Their bodies are complex mechanical structures
using rigid materials such as metal and traditional rigid electric motors.
So maybe these robots could do some of what Rosie does,
but with all the metal, they certainly weren't designed
to be low-cost, safe near people and adaptable to unpredictable challenges.
We've made good progress with the brains of robots,
but their bodies are still primitive.
This is my daughter Nadia.
She's only five years old,
and she can get out of the car way faster than HUBO.
(Laughter)
She can also swing around on monkey bars with ease,
much better than any current human-like robot could do.
In contrast to HUBO,
the human body makes extensive use of soft and deformable materials
such as muscle and skin.
We need a new generation of robot bodies
that is inspired by the elegance, efficiency
and by the soft materials of the designs found in nature.
And indeed, this has become the key idea of a new field of research
called soft robotics.
My research group and collaborators around the world
are using soft components inspired by muscle and skin
to build robots with agility and dexterity
that comes closer and closer
to the astonishing capabilities of the organisms found in nature.
I've always been particularly inspired by biological muscle.
Now, that's not surprising.
I'm also Austrian,
and I know that I sound a bit like Arnie, the Terminator.
(Laughter)
Biological muscle is a true masterpiece of evolution.
It can heal after damage,
and it's tightly integrated with sensory neurons
for feedback on motion and the environment.
It can contract fast enough to power the high-speed wings of a humming bird.
It can grow strong enough to move an elephant.
And it's adaptable enough
to be used in the extremely versatile arms of an octopus,
an animals that can squeeze its entire body through tiny holes.
Actuators are for robots what muscles are for animals:
key components of the body
that enable movement and interaction with the world.
So if we could build soft actuators, or artificial muscles,
that are as versatile, adaptable
and that have the same performance as the real thing,
we could build almost any type of robot
for almost any type of use.
Not surprisingly,
people have tried for many decades
to replicate the astonishing capabilities of muscle,
but it's been really hard.
About 10 years ago,
when I did my PhD back in Austria,
my colleges and I rediscovered
what is likely one of the very first publications on artificial muscle,
published in 1880:
"On the shape and volume changes of dielectric bodies caused by electricity,"
published by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen.
Most of you know him as the discoverer of the X-rays.
Following his instructions, we used a pair of needles.
We connected it to a high-voltage source,
and we placed it near a transparent piece of rubber
that was prestretched onto a plastic frame.
When we switched on the voltage, the rubber deformed,
and just like our biceps flexes our arm,
the rubber flexed the plastic frame.
It looks like magic.
The needles don't even touch the rubber.
Now, having two such needles
is not a practical way of operating artificial muscles,
but this amazing experiment got me hooked on the topic.
I wanted to create new ways to build artificial muscles
that would work well for real-world applications.
For the next years, I worked on a number of different technologies
that all showed promise,
but they all had remaining challenges that are hard to overcome.
In 2015, when I started my own lab at CU Boulder,
I wanted to try an entirely new idea.
I wanted to combine the high speed and efficiency
of electrically driven actuators
with the versatility of soft, fluidic actuators.
Therefore, I thought, maybe I can try using really old science in a new way.
The diagram you see here shows an effect called Maxwell stress.
When you take two metal plates
and place them in a container filled with oil,
and then switch on a voltage,
the Maxwell stress forces the oil up in between the two plates,
and that's what you see here.
So the key idea was,
Can we use this effect to push around oil contained in soft stretchy structures?
And indeed, this worked surprisingly well,
quite honestly, much better than I expected.
Together with my outstanding team of students,
we used this idea as a starting point
to develop a new technology called HASEL artificial muscles.
Many colleagues from academia and industry
have called them a true breakthrough discovery.
HASELs are gentle enough to pick up a raspberry
without damaging it.
They can expand and contract like real muscle.
And they can be operated faster than the real thing.
They can also be scaled up to deliver large forces.
Here, you see them lifting a gallon filled with water.
They can be used to drive a robotic arm,
and they can even self-sense their position.
HASELs can be used for very precise movement,
but they can also deliver very fluidic, muscle-like movement
and bursts of power to shoot up a ball into the air.
When submerged in oil,
HASEL artificial muscles can be made invisible.
So, how do HASEL artificial muscles work?
You might be surprised.
They're based on very inexpensive, easily available materials.
You can even try - and I recommend it - the main principle at home.
Take a few Ziploc bags, and fill them with olive oil.
Try to push out air bubbles as much as you can.
Now take a glass plate, and place it on one side of the bag.
When you press down, you see the bag contracts.
Now, the amount of contraction is easy to control.
When you take a small weight, you get a small contraction.
With a medium weight, we get a medium contraction.
And with a large weight, you get a large contraction.
Now, for HASELs,
the only change is to replace the force of your hand or the weights
with an electrical force.
HASEL stands for "hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuators."
Here you see a geometry called Peano-HASEL actuators,
one of many possible designs.
Again, you take a flexible polymer such as our Ziploc bag.
You fill it with an insulating liquid, such as olive oil.
And now, instead of the glass plate,
you place an electrical conductor on one side of the pouch.
To create something that looks more like a muscle fiber,
we can connect a few pouches together and attach a weight on one side.
Next, we apply voltage.
Now, the electric field starts acting on the liquid.
It displaces the liquid, and it forces the muscle to contract.
Here you see a completed Peano-HASEL actuator
and how it expands and contracts when voltage is applied.
Viewed from the side,
you can really see those pouches take a more cylindrical shape,
such as we saw with the Ziploc bags.
We can also place a few such muscle fibers next to each other
to create something that looks even more like a muscle
that also contracts and expands in cross section.
These HASELs here are lifting a weight
that's about 200 times heavier than their own weight.
Here you see one of our newest designs, called quadrant donut HASELs
and how they expand and contract.
They can be operated incredibly fast, reaching superhuman speeds.
They're even powerful enough to jump off the ground.
(Laughter)
Overall, HASELs show promise to become the first technology
that matches or exceeds the performance of biological muscle
while being compatible with large-scale manufacturing.
This is also a very young technology. We are just getting started.
We have many ideas how to drastically improve performance,
using new materials and new designs
to reach a level of performance
beyond biological muscle
and also beyond traditional rigid electric motors.
Moving towards more complex designs of HASEL for bio-inspired robotics,
here you see our artificial scorpion that can use its tail to hunt prey,
in this case, a rubber balloon.
Going back to our initial inspiration,
the versatility of octopus arms and elephant trunks,
we are now able to build soft continuum actuators
that come closer and closer to the capabilities of the real thing.
I am most excited about the practical applications
of HASEL artificial muscles.
They'll enable soft robotic devices that can improve the quality of life.
Soft robotics will enable a new generation of more lifelike prosthetics
for people who have lost parts of their bodies.
Here, you see some HASELs in my lab,
early testing, driving a prosthetic finger.
One day, we may even merge our bodies with robotic parts.
I know that sounds very scary at first.
But when I think about my grandparents
and the way their body degrades much faster than their brain
and the way they become more dependent on others
to perform simple everyday tasks such as using the restroom alone,
they often feel like they're becoming a burden.
With soft robotics,
we will be able to enhance and restore agility and dexterity,
and thereby help older people maintain autonomy
for longer parts of their lives.
Maybe we can call that "robotics for anti-aging"
or even a next stage of human evolution.
Unlike their traditional rigid counterparts,
soft lifelike robots will safely operate near people
and help us at home.
Soft robotics is a very young field.
We're just getting started.
I hope that many young people from many different backgrounds
join us on this exciting journey and help shape the future of robotics
by introducing new concepts inspired by nature.
If we do this right,
we can improve the quality of life for all of us.
Thank you.
(Applause)