{"id":24474,"date":"2020-12-30T19:45:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T19:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2020\/12\/30\/not-quite-the-terminator-but-muscle-bound-robots-are-coming-for-the-army-marines\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T02:21:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:21:56","slug":"not-quite-the-terminator-but-muscle-bound-robots-are-coming-for-the-army-marines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/unmanned\/2020\/12\/30\/not-quite-the-terminator-but-muscle-bound-robots-are-coming-for-the-army-marines\/","title":{"rendered":"Not quite the Terminator, but \u2018muscle-bound\u2019 robots are coming for the Army, Marines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Army researchers are looking to add muscle tissue to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinecorpstimes.com\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2020\/12\/18\/this-new-marine-corps-live-fire-range-has-it-all-robot-enemies-rockets-mortars-breaching\/\" target=_blank>robot platforms<\/a>, giving them \u201cnever before seen mobility and agility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2020\/12\/01\/these-soldiers-ran-a-robot-combat-vehicle-in-rifle-platoon-maneuvers\/\" target=_blank>The effort<\/a> by scientists with the Army\u2019s Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Research Laboratory and Duke University and the University of North Carolina is looking first at adding muscle to legged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/news\/your-army\/2020\/08\/10\/armys-4th-id-runs-robot-wingmen-on-scouting-maneuvers\/\" target=_blank>robot<\/a> joints rather than using actuators, according to an Army Research Laboratory statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The combined muscle and robot echoes a line from the 1991 film, \u201cTerminator 2: Judgement Day\u201d when the T-1000 character explains what he is to the young protagonist John Connor shortly after they meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Connor: You are a Terminator, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">T-1000: Yes, Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Connor: \u2026You\u2019re really real. I mean, like a machine underneath but sort of alive outside?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">T-1000: I\u2019m a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the early Army research makes no mention of cyborgs, scientists do note the advantages of muscle tissue as compared to robotics components currently in use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThough impressive in their own right, today\u2019s robots are deployed to serve a limited purpose then are retrieved some minutes later,\u201d said Dean Culver, a research scientist at the laboratory. \u201cARL wants robots to be versatile teammates capable of going anywhere Soldiers can and more, adapting to the needs of any given situation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those first, legged applications are likely to include platforms similar to the existing Army \u201cLegged Locomotion and Movement Adaptation\u201d robot, or LLAMA and the Marine Corps\u2019 Legged Squad Support System, or LS3, according to the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They main goal is to get legged robots, which have certain utilities in rough terrain, better stability in on uneven, cluttered surfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/news\/your-marine-corps\/2018\/12\/18\/marines-look-for-ibm-watson-like-artificial-intelligence-to-plan-large-scale-wargames\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Marine-wargaming-old-school.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">Marines look for IBM Watson-like artificial intelligence to plan large-scale wargames<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The capability would help Marines leverage computing and gaming advances for warfighting.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, one criticism that soldiers testing a wheeled robotic combat vehicle in rifle platoon maneuvers at Fort Benning, Georgia, in November had was its difficulty in working alongside soldiers in dense vegetation during dismounted operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOne obstacle that faces ground-based robots today is an inability to instantly adjust or adapt to unstable terrain,\u201d Culver said. \u201cMuscle actuation, though certainly not solely responsible for it, is a big contributor to animals\u2019 ability to navigate uneven and unreliable terrain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The same is true for winged creatures who can reconfigure their shape to move in tight spaces, such as among tree branches, Culver said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research isn\u2019t without precedent. In 2014, teams at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign built the first self-propelled, microscopic, biohybrid robots powered by beating cardiac muscle cells that were derived from rats, according to the National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similarly, Army scientists look to grow muscle cells and tissue for the robots for the robot biohybrid work instead of extracting it from living organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMuscle tissue is outstanding at producing a specific amount of mechanical power at a given moment, and its versatility is unrivaled in robotic actuation today,\u201d Culver said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To make the muscles work with various sizes of joints, existing methods include creating a sort of type of gel with the muscle cells inside, Ritu Raman, a mechanical engineer who works in biohybrid design, told Science Focus Magazine in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That gel is then molded to the shape needed for the muscular action on the robot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThen, because the cells are alive, when they go through this process, they\u2019re sensing and responding to their environment,\u201d Raman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c9ZY4DeIdW4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen title=\"Army strengthens future tech with muscle-bound robots\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Muscle tissue added to robots will give them \u201cnever before seen mobility and agility.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":52157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-observation-post","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":27,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,14,49,36,27,167],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3481],"class_list":["post-24474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-land","category-techwatch","category-newsletters","category-unmanned","category-unmanned-systems"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"34QNKJY2DFECXMNMIF4UUHOWAU","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2020\/12\/30\/not-quite-the-terminator-but-muscle-bound-robots-are-coming-for-the-army-marines\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"observation-post","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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