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Introduction

Shadow Air Muscle - for robotics applications

Ever felt lazy? Ever wanted a robot to do all those boring chores you hate?

Read on!

Unfortunately, developing a versatile robot that can do all sorts of things for us has proved very difficult. We have developed many robots for single tasks, such as welding car bodies together. You could even think of automatic machines such as central heating systems as robots dedicated to one task.

However, this case study tells the story of the invention of an entirely new way to control movement in human-like robots - just like a human muscle but operated by air pressure. The previous alternatives had many disadvantages which was what led to the new invention.

The air muscle was developed by Richard Greenhill and his team at the Shadow Air Muscle Company who have been working for years on building human-like or humanoid robots (sometimes called 'androids').

   Single task robots welding car bodies together.

   Task 1 - Androids

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