Illustrative image
Illustrative image (Credit: Alihaaz Creations / Adobe Stock)
Cardiovascular disease remains the world’s leading cause of death, creating an ongoing need for better tools to understand heart disease and develop more effective medical devices. Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney are addressing this challenge with a soft robotic model of the human heart that could transform how cardiovascular conditions are studied and how new devices are tested before reaching patients.
What it Is
Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney have developed a soft robotic model of the human heart capable of reproducing key aspects of heart function and disease, providing a promising new platform for studying cardiovascular conditions and evaluating medical devices before they reach patients.
How it Works
The fully synthetic model recreates the left side of the human heart, including critical internal structures such as artificial valves, papillary muscles and chordae tendineae. These components play an essential role in normal heart function and are frequently affected by disease. By combining flexible silicone structures with hydraulically powered soft robotic muscles, the model reproduces the heart’s natural contraction and twisting motions.
One of the platform’s key achievements is its ability to simulate conditions in which the heart’s mitral valve leaks, allowing blood to flow backwards rather than efficiently through the heart. The researchers successfully recreated disease states including mitral valve prolapse and regurgitation by adjusting the tension in the artificial papillary muscles supporting the valve.
To validate the model, the research team used ultrasound imaging alongside pressure and blood flow measurements. The artificial heart produced pressure, flow and valve movement patterns closely resembling those observed in healthy and diseased human hearts. The researchers also demonstrated compatibility with clinical imaging techniques such as echocardiography, enabling realistic visualisation of heart function.
Why it Matters
Beyond modeling disease, the platform also serves as a test environment for emerging medical technologies. During the study, researchers successfully evaluated a newly developed soft robotic cardiac catheter inside the beating heart model. The catheter was able to navigate the artificial heart while detecting contact with moving cardiac structures, demonstrating the platform’s potential to support development of future surgical tools and cardiac implants.
The researchers believe the controllable and repeatable environment provided by the simulator could reduce reliance on animal testing during the early stages of medical device development. Looking ahead, they also envision creating patient-specific heart models using medical imaging data, allowing clinicians to assess treatment options and device selection before performing procedures.
What’s Next
While the technology remains a proof of concept, the team emphasises that further work is needed before clinical adoption. Future development will focus on improving the materials and control systems, incorporating patient-specific heart geometries, and validating the platform against a broad range of real patient data.
Systems Engineering Perspective
The soft robotic heart demonstrates the value of systems engineering in bringing together multiple engineering disciplines to address a complex healthcare challenge. It highlights several principles that are fundamental to systems engineering:
Integration of multiple disciplines
The development of the soft robotic heart required the integration of soft robotics, biomedical engineering, materials science, fluid dynamics, sensing, control systems and medical imaging into a single functioning solution. Bringing these diverse technologies together was essential to accurately reproducing the behaviour of the human heart.
Verification and validation
An iterative process of modeling, verification and validation was used to demonstrate that the artificial heart accurately reproduced key aspects of human heart function. This process provides confidence that the model behaves as intended and establishes a foundation for future development.
Managing complexity
As the technology progresses towards patient-specific models and clinical adoption, systems engineering principles will continue to play a central role in managing complexity, integrating diverse technologies, validating performance, and ensuring that future devices safely meet stakeholder needs.
References:
Martin, Neil 2026, ‘Innovative soft robotic heart offers new way to study disease and test life-saving devices’ UNSW Sydney, viewed 6 July 2026 <https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/07/Soft_robotic_heart_study_diseases_and_life-saving_devices>
Harley, Sadie 2026, ‘Innovative soft robotic heart offers new way to study disease and test life-saving devices’ Media Xpress, viewed 7 July 2026 <https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-07-soft-robotic-heart-disease-life.html>
