Biohybrid robots: recent progress, challenges, and perspectives.

Journal: Bioinspiration & biomimetics
Published Date: Nov 8, 2022

Abstract

The past ten years have seen the rapid expansion of the field of biohybrid robotics. By combining engineered, synthetic components with living biological materials, new robotics solutions have been developed that harness the adaptability of living muscles, the sensitivity of living sensory cells, and even the computational abilities of living neurons. Biohybrid robotics has taken the popular and scientific media by storm with advances in the field, moving biohybrid robotics out of science fiction and into real science and engineering. So how did we get here, and where should the field of biohybrid robotics go next? In this perspective, we first provide the historical context of crucial subareas of biohybrid robotics by reviewing the past 10+ years of advances in microorganism-bots and sperm-bots, cyborgs, and tissue-based robots. We then present critical challenges facing the field and provide our perspectives on the vital future steps toward creating autonomous living machines.

Authors

  • Victoria A Webster-Wood
    Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering (by courtesy), McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15116, United States of America.
  • Maria Guix
    Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Baldiri i Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona Spain.
  • Nicole W Xu
    Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
  • Bahareh Behkam
    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, Blacksburg, VA 24061, United States of America.
  • Hirotaka Sato
    School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore hirosato@ntu.edu.sg.
  • Deblina Sarkar
    MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States of America.
  • Samuel Sanchez
  • Masahiro Shimizu
  • Kevin Kit Parker
    Disease Biophysics Group, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Sogang-Harvard Research Center for Disease Biophysics, Sogang University, Seoul 121-742, Korea. kkparker@seas.harvard.edu.

Keywords

External Resources

Popular Topics
Recent Journals