A SOFT robotic infant known as BabyBot has been developed to accurately mimic feeding behaviours and oral motor development in human infants from birth to six months old, offering a new, non-invasive platform for research and innovation in paediatric care134.
The challenge of studying infant feeding arises from the ethical and practical limitations of direct testing on babies, particularly when invasive procedures are required. Current alternatives, such as simulations and imaging, often fail to capture the complexity of real infant behaviour. To address this, a collaborative team from CREATE Lab, EPFL, and Nestlé Research Lausanne engineered BabyBot-a robot with a sensorised oral cavity, soft tongue, and neural control circuits. This design allows BabyBot to replicate the nuanced feeding reflexes and motor skills of infants, including sucking, swallowing, and transitioning from liquid to semi-solid foods as development progresses245. The robot’s modularity enables it to simulate various developmental stages, and it can even demonstrate abnormal feeding behaviours, such as immature sucking in preterm infants or gag reflexes in response to inappropriate feeding134.
In validation studies, BabyBot’s feeding performance and food intake efficiency were shown to closely match human infant physiology, both for typical and atypical behaviours14. The robot was able to adapt its oral anatomy and feeding patterns to represent infants from birth up to six months, including the transition from exclusive liquid feeding to the introduction of semi-solids. This capability provides researchers with a realistic, controllable, and ethical in vitro model for studying infant feeding, testing new devices, and training healthcare professionals, without the risks associated with human testing25.
BabyBot represents a significant advance in soft robotics and its application to paediatric medicine. For clinical practice, this technology could accelerate the development of safer feeding interventions, improve the design of infant feeding products, and enhance training for clinicians dealing with feeding difficulties. Future work will focus on extending BabyBot’s capabilities to older developmental stages, including the simulation of chewing, and the addition of artificial saliva to further improve physiological realism. As the field progresses, BabyBot could become an essential tool in paediatric research, medical device testing, and the understanding of early human development
Reference
Dai B et al, BabyBot: Robot with infant-like feeding behaviours and developmental oral skills. npj Robotics. 2025;DOI:10.1038/s44182-025-00026-3.
