Activation of a Soft Robotic Left Ventricular Phantom Embedded in a Closed-Loop Cardiovascular Simulator: A Computational and Experimental Analysis.

Purpose: Cardiovascular simulators are used in the preclinical testing phase of medical devices. Their reliability increases the more they resemble clinically relevant scenarios. In this study, a physiologically actuated soft robotic left ventricle (SRLV) embedded in a hybrid (in silico- in vitro) simulator of the cardiovascular system is presented, along with its experimental and computational analysis.

Methods: A SRLV phantom, developed from a patient's CT scan using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), is embedded in a hybrid cardiovascular simulator. We present an activation method in which the hydraulic pressure external ( ) to the SRLV is continuously adapted to regulate the left ventricular volume ( ), considering the geometry and material behavior of the SRLV and the left ventricular pressure ( ). This activation method is verified using a finite element (FE) model of the SRLV and validated in the hybrid simulator. Different hemodynamic profiles are presented to test the flexibility of the method.

Results: Both the FE model and hybrid simulator could represent the desired in silico data ( , ) with the implemented activation method, with deviations below 8.09% in the FE model and mainly < 10% errors in the hybrid simulator. Only two measurements out of 32 exceeded the 10% threshold due to simulator setup limitations.

Conclusion: The activation method effectively allows to represent various pressure-volume loops, as verified numerically, and validated experimentally in the hybrid simulator. This work presents a high-fidelity platform designed to simulate cardiovascular conditions, offering a robust foundation for future testing of cardiovascular medical devices under physiological conditions.