EAP Actuators for Biomimetic Technologies with Humanlike Robots as one of the Ultimate Challenges

Since the Stone Age, people have tried to reproduce the human appearance, functions, and intelligence using art and technology. Any aspect that represents our physical and intellectual being has been a subject of copying, mimicking and inspiration. Recent surges in technology advances led to the emergence of increasingly more realistic humanlike robots and simulations. Making such robots is part of the field of biologically inspired technologies - also known as biomimetics - and it involves developing engineered systems that exhibit the appearance and behavior of biological systems. Robots with selectable characteristics and personality that are customized to our needs and with self-learning capability may become our household appliance or even companion and they may be used to perform hard to do and complex tasks. In enabling this technology such elements as artificial intelligence, muscles, vision, skin and others are increasingly improved. In this paper, making humanlike robots will be described with focus on the use of artificial muscles as the enabling technology and the related challenges.