Biological muscle is considered a powerful actuator due to its flexibility, lightweight, and efficiency. The building unit of a muscle, sarcomere, and the study of its energy balance cycle is considered in researches due to its importance to mimic the micro-level muscle structure to improve the artificial muscle performance. In this work, a new design of a linear actuator based on the sarcomere behavior is developed. The design is inspired by studying the four steps adenosine triphosphate (ATP) hydrolysis cycle, which is the main source of the required energy for sarcomere contraction. A new developed hybrid hydrogel-polymeric material actuator is designed in this paper using a combination between Ionic Polymeric Metallic Composites (IPMC) and hydrogel to behave like the sarcomere. This new actuator proposes an autonomous cycle using the effect oscillatory Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. The physical model is proposed, and the mathematical model of the actuator is derived and formulated and identified using MATLAB/Simulink.

Biological muscle is considered an inspiring actuator for the researchers in the field of biorobots. The main building unit of a muscle, sarcomere, and the study of its energy cycle is analyzed to mimic the micro-level muscle components' behavior to improve actuator performance and efficiency. A newly developed hybrid material actuator is designed using a combination of Ionic Polymeric Metallic Composites and hydrogel to behave like the sarcomere with different deflection types. The proposed module is arranged in two different configurations and performance is investigated for working at once or working in sequence. A physical model is proposed, and a mathematical model of the actuator is derived and formulated using MATLAB Simulink. The proposed arrangements show an improvement in force and displacement magnification of three times relative to the single module. Also, working in a sequence shows promising results to work effectively to simulate muscle performance for motion profiles.