柔性机器手——精细到可以摘草莓
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Robots are wielding a new kind of soft power.
机器人正开始运用一种新型的软实力。
Researchers have outfitted them with a new class of muscles, which—like our own—offer both strength and sensitivity.
研究者们给它们装上了一种新的肌肉，它—就像我们人类的肌肉一样—既可以提供力量又具有灵敏性。
By not overpowering and damaging the objects they’re manipulating, the muscles could one day help a new generation of soft robots perform delicate tasks—everything from picking fruit to assisting elderly people.
通过对操纵物件过度用力和损坏的避免，这种肌肉将来有一天可以帮助新一代的软机器人们完成精细的任务——从摘水果到帮助老年人。
Robots, particularly those used in manufacturing, have long been good at repetitive tasks that require lots of power, such as welding pieces of a car chassis.
机器人，特别是制造类机器人，早就被用于完成需要极大力量的反复性任务，比如焊接汽车底盘。 But their motions tend to be rigid and ill-suited for tasks that require variable amounts of force.
但它们的动作往往比较僵硬，不适合完成那些需要多种不同大小的力的任务。
They’re also potentially dangerous to anyone who wanders too close.
它们也对任何走得太近的人类潜在有危险。Robotics researchers are trying to create softer versions that can work alongside humans—or even as a part of them, like prostheses that can help paralyzed people walk.
机器人研究者们正视图创造出柔性版本的可以在人们身边工作的机器人—或者作为人体一部分而工作，比如可以帮助瘫痪的人们走路的假体。
Two soft muscle technologies have jumped to the fore: pneumatic actuators, which pump gases or liquids into soft pouches to create particular movements, and devices called dielectric elastomer actuators, which apply an electric field across an insulating flexible plastic to make it deform with a particular movement.
两种科技走到了这个领域的前沿：气动制动器，他通过把气体或液体泵入软囊内来产生特定的运动，还有被称为绝缘弹性体制动器的设备，它通过覆盖弹性绝缘体塑料的电场来使它产生特定的变形运动。
Pneumatic actuators are both powerful and easy to make, but pumps can be bulky and moving gases and fluids around can be slow.
气动制动器既有力又容易制造，但泵体积庞大，移动的气体和液体又比较慢。
Dielectric elastomer actuators are fast and energy efficient. But they often fail catastrophically when a bolt of electricity blasts through the plastic.
绝缘弹性体制动器快速又节能。但它们在遇到击穿塑料的电流会变得一败涂地。
Now, researchers led by Christoph Keplinger, a physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, have married the best of both technologies, creating soft musclelike actuators that use electricity to drive the movement of liquids inside small pouches.
现在，博尔德市科罗拉多大学的物理学家克里斯多夫.科普灵格把两种技术的精华融为一体，创造出了柔性的像肌肉一样的制动器，它利用电流来驱动小囊内液体的运动。
The design is simple.
设计比较简单。
The actuators start with small plastic pouches that contain an insulating liquid, such as regular canola oil from the supermarket.
制动器最开始用的是塑料小囊，里面装有绝缘液体，比如从超市买来的普通菜油。
When researchers apply a voltage between electrodes placed on both sides of the pouch, they are drawn together, squeezing the liquid and causing it to flow to nearby regions.
当研究者们在位于小囊两端的电极加载上电压后，它们被吸引到了一起，挤压着液体使它流向附近的区域。
The upshot is that the actuator changes shape, and whatever is connected to it moves.
最后的结果就是制动器变形了，或者不管怎么样它动了起来。
Keplinger and his colleagues report today in a pair of papers in Science and Science Robotics that they created three soft muscle designs that contract with the precision and force of mammalian skeletal muscles.
科普灵格和他的同事今天在《科学》和《科学机器人分刊》中发表了两篇文章，说他们创造出了三种可以像人的骨骼肌一样精确而有力的柔性肌肉设计。
In their Science paper, Keplinger’s team showed that a series of doughnut-shaped actuators had the dexterity to enable a robotic gripper to pick up and hold a raspberry.
在《科学》上发表的这篇论文中，科普灵格的团队展示了一系列甜甜圈形状的制动器，它们的灵敏性让一个机器爪钳可以捡起捏住一颗草莓。They also showed that if a bolt of electricity did arc through the insulating liquid between the electrodes, any “damage” was instantly repaired when the arcing stopped, and new liquid flowed into the region. And in Science Robotics, Keplinger’s team reports creating two other muscle designs that contract linearly, much like a human bicep, enabling them to lift far more than their own weight at a rapid repetition rate.
“This is a very big step,” says Robert Shepherd, a soft robotics expert at Cornell University.
“这是一次巨大的进步，”罗伯特.谢博特说，他是康奈尔大学的柔性机器人专家。 “What they’ve got is the benefit of the fluid system with direct electrical control.”
“他们掌握了直流电控制的流体系统的优势所在。”
That combination, Shepherd says, could spur numerous applications, including more lifelike prosthetic devices and soft robots that can work alongside people without safety concerns.
这种结合，谢博特说，可以产生多种应用，包括更逼真的假体装置和可以在人们身边工作而无需担心安全问题的柔性机器人。
And because the materials for making the soft muscles are cheap and readily available, other new designs are sure to follow.
又因为制造这种柔性肌肉的材料是现有的还便宜，其他的新设计肯定也会涌现。
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