Development of a Soft Robotic Cardiac Simulator with Electro-Pneumatic Actuation for Device Testing and Clinical Training

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide. As life expectancy rises, an increasing number of patients are no longer eligible for conventional open-heart surgery, driving the rapid growth of transcatheter and minimally invasive interventions. While these approaches reduce recovery times and perioperative risks, they also introduce clinical and engineering challenges. Procedures must be performed on the beating heart, with limited access, no tactile feedback, and reliance on indirect visualization through medical imaging. At the same time, cardiovascular devices must navigate complex anatomy, achieve accurate positioning, and ensure long-term function under dynamic physiological loading. These challenges underscore the need for reliable and controllable preclinical testing platforms that replicate realistic cardiovascular conditions. These systems offer a valuable alternative to in vivo and ex vivo models by minimizing biological variability and reducing reliance on animal testing in the development and validation of novel interventions and devices. In this work, an in vitro benchtop cardiovascular simulator is presented, featuring an actively contracting soft robotic left ventricle integrated into a pulsatile mock circulatory loop. The ventricular model includes a compliant zero-volume chamber actuated by an electro-pneumatic system capable of reproducing physiological and pathological hemodynamics. A feedback loop maintains the target flow rate, while a user interface allows adjustment of key parameters such as flow rate, heart rate, systolic duration, diastolic duration, and inlet actuation pressure. By offering high reproducibility and control over geometry and performance, the proposed simulator provides a valuable alternative to animal testing and represents a first step in the evolution of benchtop cardiovascular simulators, supporting preclinical research, device testing, and interventional planning in a fully engineered environment.