Soft robotic heart offers new way to study disease and test life-saving devices

UNSW Sydney researchers have created a fully synthetic soft robotic model of the left side of the human heart, capable of mimicking complex cardiac movements, internal valve structures (including papillary muscles and chordae tendineae), and disease states such as mitral valve prolapse and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Powered by hydraulic artificial muscles arranged to replicate the heart's layered muscle architecture, the model produces pressure and flow waveforms closely matching real human hearts and is compatible with clinical ultrasound imaging. The platform was also used to test a soft robotic cardiac catheter inside the beating model. Researchers envision it reducing animal testing in early device development and eventually enabling patient-specific surgical planning using medical imaging data, though it remains a proof-of-concept requiring further clinical validation.

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