Abstract: Dysphagia is a major health concern in older adults and stroke patients. The complexity of swallowing hampers the development of functional foods and complicates objective evaluation of their swallowing performance. Therefore, an in vitro method that can simulate safe and effective swallowing is urgently needed. In this study, Video Fluoroscopic Swallowing Study (VFSS) from Normal Subject (NS) was used to investigate the motion timing and deformation of soft tissues, including the tongue, Soft Palate (SP), and Posterior Pharyngeal Wall (PPW), to inform the design of a multi-chamber soft-tissue structure. A Finite Element Method (FEM) was then used to obtain time-resolved deformation parameters under pneumatic actuation, enabling the development of a Bionic Swallowing Device (BSD) for in vitro assessment of food swallowing performance. By adjusting the control system parameters to reproduce swallowing in dysphagia patients (DP), the BSD was validated against VFSS. The device was further used to quantify the effects of bolus consistency on the swallowing performance of pea protein solutions. The results showed that oral soft tissues exhibit coordinated motion characterized by tongue-dominant propulsion, early SP closure, and delayed PPW constriction. The multi-chamber model correlated well with VFSS (r=0.94), and the BSD reproduced the swallowing process of DP (r= 0.88). Moreover, BSDbased guidance recommended a 10–15% concentration for DP with timing abnormalities and 10% for DP with combined timing and deformation abnormalities. This study provides valuable insights for novel BSD development and in vitro evaluation of the swallowing performance about functional foods.

Key words: Dysphagia')">Dysphagia, Bionic design, Functional food, Control system, Swallowing safety