A Soft Robotic Model for Simulating Heart Valve Disease and Cardiac Interventions

The heart is a dynamic, multisystem organ whose motion is dictated by a complex but organized muscular architecture. Each component is vital to its performance, with the valves being especially critical for ensuring pumping efficiency, yet they are among the most common sites of pathology. Treatment of heart disease is being delivered via minimally invasive procedures to improve patient outcomes and experience. The development of new surgical tools and procedures would greatly benefit from a stable, controllable, and biomimetic simulation platform that accurately replicates the heart's biomechanics and hemodynamics, yet no such system exists. This work introduces a fully synthetic, soft robotic left heart simulator capable of replicating the complex motions of native heart. Its advanced fabrication process is programmable, enabling both patient- and disease-specific cardiac geometries, structures, and valves. The simulator is compatible with clinical echocardiographic imaging, enabling identification of various valvular pathologies based on clinical diagnostic criteria. Its utility is further demonstrated through the evaluation of a new soft robotic cardiac catheter with in-situ contact force sensing and feedforward, data-driven control system. With controllable artificial musculature and customizable internal cardiac structures and geometry, the simulator offers a robust platform for investigating cardiac disease and assessing emerging therapeutic technologies.