A team of researchers has created a robot with arms that are so string that the robot can carry weight 50 times heavier than its own weight. Researchers were able to create such strong muscles by using vanadium dioxide. The incredible properties of vanadium dioxide helped researchers with the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to create super strong muscles for robots.

The robot hurled the object 50 times heavier than itself over a distance five times its length within 60 milliseconds.

Junqiao Wu is a physicist who holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and the University of California-Berkeley's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He said, "We've created a micro-bimorph dual coil that functions as a powerful torsional muscle, driven thermally or electro-thermally by the phase transition of vanadium dioxide".

He added that they have been able to achieve unprecedented performance in power density and speed over the motors and actuators now used in integrated micro-systems. A simple design and inorganic material were all that took the researchers achieve a feat in advancement of robot technology.

The researchers have said that the latest achievement has made them go one step ahead to develop super robots to carry out tasks that are either too risky or impossible for human beings.