UNLV receives $3.8 million grant to study artificial muscles

By Daniel Rothberg

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015 | 5 p.m.

Soft robotics might be the next big thing in medicine. With the cutting-edge technology, researchers have created a glove to return a paralyzed hand to its full function and an unobtrusive exoskeleton for patients with severe neurological diseases.

The newest innovations in the field could come from UNLV.

Thanks to a $3.8 million award from the National Science Foundation this week, a team of UNLV researchers are researching material that could have applications for soft robotics, a sub-field that designs devices from pliable material. Soft robotics are useful when dealing with items — a human or a piece of clothing — that are squishy or easily damaged. The UNLV team will look in particular at artificial muscles.

“The development of artificial muscles will benefit understanding of methods that mimic biology and could be applied in many fields of engineering and science in connection with soft robotics,” said UNLV professor Kwang Kim, the principal investigator.

At UNLV, Kim will work with Paul Oh, a robotics professor. The research centers on synthetic materials that he believes could provide a cost-effective material for creating artificial muscles.

Tom Piechota, UNLV’s vice president for research and economic development, said the $3.8 million award was one of the largest the university received this year. “These are the types of awards we want to be getting,” he said.

The grant, in addition to its size, is important because it supports an area — robotics and autonomous systems — that the university is developing. “When you become a top-tier institution you want to be well-known in certain areas,” he said. “That’s starting to happen in areas like this.”

In addition to soft robotics, Kim’s research may have other applications in medical diagnostics and surgery. Carl Vause, the CEO of Soft Robotics Inc., said the field, once limited to research at a couple of universities, has seen tremendous growth in recent years. “The whole field of soft robotics is just exploding,” he said.