Tongue-Like Bioactuator with Multiple Skeletal Muscle Tissues

We proposed a tongue-like bioactuator composed of multiple muscle tissues capable of different motion patterns under different stimulation conditions. To mimic the jointless structure of tongue, in which muscle fibers are arranged in a multi-directional manner, we orthogonally attached two skeletal muscle tissues with aligned myotubes. Leveraging the anisotropic properties of muscle tissue in response to electric stimulation, this bioactuator achieved bidirectional rotations under horizontal stimulation and linear actuation under vertical stimulation. Compared to conventional muscular bioactuator, our tongue-like bioactuator will provide a way to enable complex motions of muscle-based biohybrid robots.