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Wearable Muscles

ethz.ch

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Re: Wearable Muscles

#11

Post by 10000truths »

leobg wrote: post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

The problem of “flying” in the sense you describe is fundamentally limited by the square cube law. Even birds, whose anatomies are literally evolved for flight, will have a tough time staying in the air if they are scaled up to have a similar mass to us humans.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#14

Post by centixel »

10000truths wrote: post #11
leobg wrote: post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

The problem of “flying” in the sense you describe is fundamentally limited by the square cube law. Even birds, whose anatomies are literally evolved for flight, will have a tough time staying in the air if they are scaled up to have a similar mass to us humans.

Wikipedia says a Pteranodon[0] might have weighed up to 200kg. I wonder if the different mix of gases in the atmosphere during the Cretaceous period made any difference to how much weight could be supported while flying.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteranodon

Re: Wearable Muscles

#15

Post by pvaldes »

leobg wrote: post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

The obvious step would be not try to fly, would be improving hang gliders to be safer, catch better the wind currents or avoid obstacles proactively and have more autonomy. If the device suddenly fails, you still are in a hand glider.

Also engineering a motor that would flap like a colibri for hours without failing will be really hard and uncomfortable by the generated heat burning your back, but a motor that would flap here and there like a vulture for one or two minutes and then rest again would be much more easy to design and maintain. Would need also less weight of combustible.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#16

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab »

10000truths wrote: post #11
leobg wrote: post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

The problem of “flying” in the sense you describe is fundamentally limited by the square cube law. Even birds, whose anatomies are literally evolved for flight, will have a tough time staying in the air if they are scaled up to have a similar mass to us humans.

There were pterosaurs much larger than humans.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#17

Post by dbcooper »

beanjuice wrote: post #9
dbcooper wrote: post #4

Anyone know how to download the Nature "Sharedit" pdfs?

I assume you are referring to the link in the article to [0], for me there is a button labelled 'PDF' with a "download arrow" in the upper right next to print. Perhaps there is an extension blocking the button/function? [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-022-00495-3.epdf?shar...

Download is blocked for that article.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#18

Post by tommoor »

This is cool… but I suppose I had imagined that technology was actually already much further along than this :( It all seems a bit jerry-rigged.

Waiting for the future version which is a sleeve with integrated carbon fibre muscles you can slip under regular clothing

Re: Wearable Muscles

#19

Post by hoseja »

centixel wrote: post #14
10000truths wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of “flying” in the sense you describe is fundamentally limited by the square cube law. Even birds, whose anatomies are literally evolved for flight, will have a tough time staying in the air if they are scaled up to have a similar mass to us humans.

Wikipedia says a Pteranodon[0] might have weighed up to 200kg. I wonder if the different mix of gases in the atmosphere during the Cretaceous period made any difference to how much weight could be supported while flying. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteranodon

In the sense that more oxygen was available to muscles, maybe. In any buoyancy or aerodynamics sense, the effect would be miniscule at best.

Re: Wearable Muscles

#20

Post by JetAlone »

leobg wrote: post #8

My immediate thought was: We could use those to power wings and fly! You see, I spent the last weeks reading up on Otto Lilienthal. And while we might think that we have already "cracked" flying, we actually haven't. Humans still cannot fly. We can only board. What we do not have achieved is the sense of "flying like a bird", which Lilienthal was after. The idea that you control your movements through the air directl…

There have been massive struggles taken on by individuals and small teams to create ornithopters that can carry people. A solely human powered ornithopter was able to stay airborne for 19 seconds - using a mediatory lever to transfer push/pull leg power into wing motions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM9GJ3JOJv0

Then there is, of course, the story of the skycycle, which is rotational.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/13/archives/american-pilot-p...

Both of these machines should be comparable, I think, to rowing versus the ideal of Lillienthal, which is like swimming.

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