Meisam Abdi, a researcher at De Montfort University Leicester, has received a 2026/27 Royal Academy of Engineering/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship to study whether additive manufacturing can produce artificial muscles for soft robots.
Abdi is one of eight engineers in the UK selected for the award. The fellowship funds up to a year of research into materials and structures that could help robots move, sense and respond more like living organisms.
The project will examine how 3D printing can create architected structures whose geometry provides specific properties, rather than attempting to reproduce the physical structure of a human muscle. Abdi plans to model combinations of piezoelectric, conductive and structural materials and architectures using computer-aided engineering, then 3D print and test them in the laboratory for their response to electrical stimulation.
Piezoelectric materials are central to the work because they can convert mechanical deformation into electrical energy and deform under an applied electric field. De Montfort University said 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. The aim is to reach the required properties while keeping the structure soft and flexible.
“If we want people to interact safely with robots in places such as hospitals, we need to move away from completely rigid structures and think about how we can give robots some of the attributes we see in living systems,” Abdi said.
The longer-term goal is artificial muscles that can produce movement, sense their environment and harvest small amounts of electrical energy from mechanical movement or vibration. Abdi said biological systems are remarkable because they combine movement, sensing and responses to external stimuli. The project asks whether an artificial structure can be designed and manufactured to reproduce some of those functions.
He added that he is not trying to copy something that already exists in nature. By changing materials and geometry, he wants to see whether he can create properties that do not currently exist naturally.
“This is an ambitious project,” Abdi said. “There is already significant research into soft robotics, but creating something that can begin to replicate the multiple functions of living muscle remains a major challenge.”
During the fellowship, Abdi aims to develop a prototype that demonstrates what is possible and provides a foundation for further research.