Meisam Abdi, a researcher at De Montfort University Leicester in the UK, has received a 2026/27 Royal Academy of Engineering/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship to study whether 3D printing can produce artificial muscles for soft robots.
Abdi is one of eight engineers in the UK selected for the award, which funds up to a year of research into materials and structures that could help robots move, sense and respond more like living organisms.
From rigid machines to soft systems
Abdi said safe interaction between people and robots in settings such as hospitals requires moving away from completely rigid structures and considering how robots can be given some attributes found in living systems.
The project will use additive manufacturing to create architected structures whose geometry provides specific properties. The goal is not to reproduce the physical structure of a human muscle. Instead, different combinations of piezoelectric, conductive and structural materials and architectures will be modeled with computer-aided engineering, then 3D printed and tested in the laboratory for their response to electrical stimulation.
Piezoelectric materials and printed cellular structures
The work focuses on piezoelectric materials, which can convert mechanical deformation into electrical energy and deform under an applied electric field. According to DMU, existing high-performance piezoelectric materials are often stiff and brittle, while some of the most widely used contain lead. Those characteristics complicate the development of soft, flexible and more sustainable artificial muscles.
Abdi’s approach combines material composition with specially designed 3D printed cellular structures to reach the required properties while remaining soft and flexible. The longer-term aim is artificial muscles that can produce movement, sense their environment and harvest small amounts of electrical energy from mechanical movement or vibration.
An ambitious prototype target
Abdi said biological systems are notable for combining movement, sensing and responses to external stimuli, and that the question is whether an artificial structure can be designed and manufactured to reproduce some of those functions.
He added that the project does not aim to copy something already existing in nature. By changing materials and geometry, the researchers want to see whether they can create properties that do not currently exist naturally.
Abdi described the project as ambitious. Significant research into soft robotics already exists, he said, but creating something that can begin to replicate the multiple functions of living muscle remains a major challenge. His ambition during the fellowship is to develop a prototype that demonstrates what is possible and can provide a foundation for further research.