Nebraska engineers develop self-healing artificial muscle for robots

Engineers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have created self-healing artificial muscle for soft robotics and wearables, mimicking biological self-repair. The artificial muscle, composed of three layers, detects damage, locates it, and initiates repair using a current network to melt a thermoplastic layer. This allows for repeated self-healing, addressing a key challenge in synthetic systems. The technology, demonstrated at an IEEE conference, could be used in agricultural robots and wearable health devices, with potential applications in consumer electronics.