Neuromuscular actuation of biohybrid motile bots

Supporting Information

• Download Appendix (PDF)
• Download Movie_S01 (AVI) - Tail deflections induced by neuromuscular actuation. Before releasing the swimmer, tails are cut first and the capability of muscle contractions to induce tail deflection is verified. Movie plays at 2x speed.
• Download Movie_S02 (AVI) - Vertical distance between swimmer and bottom surface. Z-stack taken after suspending the swimmer in Percoll-media mixture, covering a range starting below the bottom surface of the dish up to a plane above the swimmer.
• Download Movie_S03 (AVI) - Forward swimming, experiment and simulation. (A) Free-floating swimmer is actuated by neuromuscular units, (B) generating forward locomotion. First 10 seconds are the rest phase, optical stimulation begins at t=10s. (C) Simulation illustrates the same outcome where tail deflections caused by muscle contractions drive (D) forward locomotion. Movie plays at 4x speed.
• Download Movie_S04 (AVI) - Quantification of swimmer position in time. (Left) Swimmer actuated by neuromuscular units. Optical stimulation begins at t=5s. (Right) Swimmer position and leg deflections measured by image processing, and the input optical stimulus. Swimmer drifts very slowly during the rest phase, accelerates for 1s upon initiation of actuation, then attains a steady swimming velocity where position vs. time has a linear progression. Movie plays at 2x speed.
• Download Movie_S05 (AVI) - Simulation of the single-tail swimmer design illustrating the lateral swinging motion of the swimmer head.