Biomimetics - inspiration from nature to create new and improved products

What is biomimetic design?
Biomimetics - or bionik as parts of Europe calls it - is the discipline of creating new objects with inspiration from nature. The terms are constructed from Greek "bios" meaning life, the suffix "ik" from 'mechanik' (meaning mechanics in German) and "mimeistai" meaning imitate. The discipline is interesting for designers since it offers a huge base of well proven design principles - many of them have evolved over millions of years and proven their value by still being in use. The inspiration from nature can be direct and remind of copying or it can be more indirect where phenomena or principles found in nature are used more freely within the design process.

An old activity
Inspiration from nature has been done for many years, but biomimetics as a scientific discipline is still in its infancy. It is straight forward to do biomimetic design when a direct analogy to the actual design situation is apparent. For example was it probably an easy deduction for the stone age man to make clothes from animal fur - he could see that the animals could withstand the cold weather. However, the amount of inspiration available in nature is much larger than the direct analogies. Many of the underlying principles that explain the functionally in animals and plants are not immediately recognisable and a more advanced study is required to find and understand them.

A scientific discipline
Biomimetics as a scientific discipline needs to formulate theories that will explain the relations between nature and technology and develop methodologies that will facilitate the design process. Design is basically about creating new ideas and transforming them into physical or immaterial concepts. But the design activity will be different depending on the focus. Engineering design with focus on mechanics and industrial design with focus on aesthetics use biomimetics in two fundamentally different ways. Roughly speaking are the engineering designer mostly focused on inspiration to new functional principles, like for example cleaning principles or principles for reduced flow resistance. The industrial designer on the other hand has focus on inspiration for aesthetics and geometric shape, like plant shapes and animal expressions. This is of course a very rough generalisation and the real world picture is much more complex. Furthermore will both groups also be interested in other aspects of nature, for instance system oriented inspiration from ecosystems. But the distinction is important when looking at supportive measures for biomimetics. Search methodologies for mechanical principles are very different from retrieval tools for geometry and shape.



Project team:
Torben Lenau Department of Manement Engineering
Technical University of Denmark
Andy Dentel, Bionik, HS Bremen
Thórunn M. Ingvarsdóttir and Tómas Vignir Gudlaugsson, Final thesis students


Publications:
L.H.Shu, T.A.Lenau, H.N.Hansen, L.Alting: Biomimetics applied to centeringin micro-assembly, CIRP-annals 2003, vol 52/1/2003, p.101-104.

Torben Lenau, Michael Barfoed and Li Shu: Challenges in biomimetic design and innovation, Poster at the conference 'Bioinspired Nanotechnologies for Smarter Products', 20th - 21st March 2007 at the Society of Chemical Industry, London, organised by The Institute of Nanotechnology.

Torben Lenau and Michael Barfoed: Material Innovation - inspired by nature, Danish Metallurgical Society - Annual Winter Meeting, Middelfart 10-12 January 2007, 10 pages.

Torben Lenau and Michael Barfoed: Teknisk udvikling med inspiration i naturen, Teknisk Nyt Special, Nr. 5a, Vol. 14, April 2007, p.25-26.

Torben Lenau and Michael Barfoed: Colours and metallic sheen in beetle shells- a biomimetic search for material structuring principles causing light interference, Journal of Advanced Engineering Materials, vol.10, no. 4, 2008, 299-314, DOI: 10.1002/adem.200700346.

Torben Lenau, Hyunmin Cheong and Li Shu: Sensing in nature - using biomimetics for design of sensors, Sensor Review, Vol 28-4, 2008, p.311-316.

Bionik - med naturen som forbillede (Biomimetics - with nature as a role model), Danmarks Radio p1 Videnskabens Verden 4. oktober 2008 16-17, can be heard or pod-casted from http://dr.dk/P1/Videnskabensverden/Udsendelser/2008/10/07101057.htm (in Danish)

Torben Lenau: Biomimetics – new and improved solutions inspired by nature, Invited viewpoint article, Sensor Review, Vol.29-2, 2009, p.96.

Torben Lenau: Biomimetics as a design methodology – possibilities and challenges, International Conference on Engineering Design, ICED'09 24 - 27 august 2009, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Torben Lenau: Approaches to mimic the metallic sheen in beetles, SPIE Optics & Photonics - The Biomimetics and Bioinspiration conference, 2-6 August 2009, San Diego, USA.

T. Lenau, A. Dentel, Þ. Ingvarsdóttir and T. Guðlaugsson: Engineering Design of an Adaptive Leg Prosthesis Using Biological Principles, International Design Conference - Design 2010 Dubrovnik - Croatia, May 17 - 20, 2010

Overview litterature:

Benyus J.M. Biomimicry - innovation inspired by nature, 1997 (Perennial - HarperCollins Publishers).

Bar-Cohen Y. (ed) Biomimetics - biology inspired technologies, 2006 (Taylor & Francis).

Kato, N. and Kamimura S. Bio-mechanics of swimming and flying, 2007 (Springer)

Nachtigall, W. Bionik, 2002 (Springer)

Strager, H. m.fl. Bionik - mennesket lærer af naturen, 2005 (Zoologisk museum)

Vincent J.F.V. Biomimetic modelling, Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Modelling in Biomechanics, 2003 358(1437), 1597-1603,

Vogel, Steven: Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People, W.W.Norton, New York

Links:

Asknature.org A good biomimicry search engine and database with many biological examples
Biodiscovery An Australian based cross disciplinary network looking for new pharmaceuticals in the marine environment
bioinspired.umd.edu at the University of Maryland
biokon.net A network for Bionic research in Germany
Bionik, HS Bremen
biomimetic-architecture.com An inspiration site for Biomimetics - many good case examples
biomimetics.org.nz A New Zealand Society
Biomimetik.dk A Danish for news and insight into biomimetics
Biomimicry.net (hosted by The Biomimicry Institute)
BIONIS - The Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability, hosted by the Reading and Bath Universities
Centre for Biomimetics at the University of Reading
Division of Biocomposites, KTH Stockholm
Leonardo da Vinci - Zentrum at TU München
Natural Photonics at The University of Exeter
TED Ideas worth spreading - good introductory you-tube-like videos on many topics - look for biomimetics, Beynyus or Robert Full
The Biomimetics Group at the University of Bath
The Biomimicry Institute, Montana USA
Toronto, Biomimetics for Innovation and Design Laboratory, University of Toronto; Canada
tolweb.org/tree/ Tree of Life - many descriptions and good pictures of biological phenomena