Poliba and MIT Media Lab research: here are the new artificial muscles that can be integrated into robots and wearable devices

The project coordinator, Professor Cacucciolo: «Thin, strong and fast like human ones. Possible applications especially in rehabilitation medicine»

March 31, 2026

Extremely thin, with a diameter of just 2 millimeters, extremely flexible and strong. So much so that they can simulate the behavior of the muscles of the human body without the aid anymore – a result long awaited in this field – of bulky external motors. They are the new Electrofluidic fiber muscles, the latest generation of artificial muscles for robots and wearable devices, the result of research carried out in collaboration between the RoboPhysics Laboratory of the Polytechnic University of Bari and the MIT Media Lab of the Massachussets Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. The results of the activity, entirely innovative, have just been published in the international scientific journal Science Robotics. «For the first time, we have artificial muscles with all the optimal characteristics of strength, contraction and speed, electrically actuated autonomously and in closed loop», says Vito Cacucciolo, associate professor of Applied Mechanics at the Polytechnic University of Bari, scientific coordinator of the research project.

THE TECHNOLOGY

Inside the fibers used to make the artificial muscles, a fluid flows which, when pressurized, causes their movement. So far, this is already known technology. However, the fluids required the thrust of external actuators. Pumps and valves that, inevitably, made the devices bulky and noisy. «This new technology – explains Ozgun Kilic Afsar, PhD student in the Tangible Media group at MIT Media Lab – no longer requires compressors or tanks, is wirelessly actuated and is silent. Moreover, it is perfectly scalable, simply by connecting the fibers».

This means that the artificial muscles developed by the Polytechnic University of Bari and MIT Media Lab, being in the form of a thin and lightweight fiber, can be grouped and arranged in different configurations, to be adapted, for example, to the structure of robots. They can also be easily integrated into a wearable device. «The possible applications are numerous – concludes Professor Cacucciolo. I am thinking of rehabilitation medicine, soft robotics, muscle-support devices in industrial contexts as well, where high muscular performance is required».

THE ERC STARTING GRANT

The result of this research is also closely linked to the previous milestones reached by Professor Cacucciolo. The research is in fact funded within the project Robofluid, led by the Bari professor, who in 2023 won a ERC Starting Grant worth 1.5 million euros. These are highly coveted grants for researchers, made available by the ERC – European Research Council – to support frontier research in all fields. For Cacucciolo, who returned to Italy after gaining significant experience abroad and at other Italian universities, the grant represented an opportunity to continue, with great autonomy, the research on which he had focused since his early years as a PhD student, in the Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management of Poliba, where his career began as a student.

THE PROPOSAL FROM THE USA

In Bari, in fact, Cacucciolo had been contacted by the MIT Media Lab to seek a solution to a major obstacle in the development of soft and wearable robots. The goal was to integrate fiber pumps with thin McKibben actuators, building on his previous research (actuators are to robots what muscles are to human beings, and McKibben are a type of actuator with a hollow cylindrical braided mesh structure, designed to emulate muscle contraction). Within the framework of this collaboration, the research teams of Poliba and MIT Media Lab focused on closed-loop solutions, which ultimately led to the development of a new type of high-performance fluidic actuator. The electrofluidic fiber muscle in fact has a power density (the amount of energy transmitted per unit of weight and time) of 50 watts per kilogram and a response time of 0.3 seconds. A new perspective for the international scientific community and for the industry in the sector.

The research authors I am Ozgun Kilic Afsar, PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab, as first author and Professor Puppy, in the role of scientific coordinator. The team includes Gabriele Pupillo e Gennaro Vitucci, of the Polytechnic University of Bari, Wedyan Babatain and the professor Hiroshi Ishii, from the MIT Media Lab.

The article published in Science Robotics is available at the link: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17902764

An abstract is available here https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.ady6438

The article Poliba and MIT Media Lab research: here are the new artificial muscles that can be integrated into robots and wearable devices comes from Poliba Chronicle.