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Biomimetics, as the transfer of strategies from biology to technology, is an emerging research area and has led to significant concepts over the past decades. The development of such concepts is described by the process of biomimetics, encompassing several steps. In Practice, beneficiaries of the process face challenges. Therefore, to overcome challenges and to facilitate the steps, tools have been developed in various areas, such as engineering, computing and design. However, these tools are not widely used yet. This paper presents an overview and a classification study of more than 40 tools with qualitative criteria. The criteria included, for example, the year of development, the accessibility of tools, the facilitated steps of the process or their contribution to sustainability. The classification shows that certain steps of the process and their challenges are well addressed by the tools, while other steps are not. The presented results contribute to the proposal of an improvement of the state of the art, and they build the foundation for future theoretical and practical analyses. These findings could contribute to increasing the implementation of biomimetics in various disciplines in the long term.

We present the BioM Innovation Database, the first of its kind containing detailed information about global biomimetic activity. We present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the database to address the following questions: (1) Are products, which are identified as being the result of biologically inspired design (BID), actually BID and to what extent do they use biomimicry terminology in their descriptions by the designers? (2) To what extent do BID products mimic the forms, processes and interactions of biological systems? (3) To what extent do BID products exploit the scale and range of biological systems? (4) What patterns of design practice can we learn from successful BID practitioners?

Biologically inspired design (BID) is an emerging field of research with increasing achievements in engineering for design and problem solving. Its economic, societal, and ecological impact is considered to be significant. However, the number of existing products and success stories is still limited when compared to the knowledge that is available from biology and BID research. This article describes success factors for BID solutions, from the design process to the commercialization process, based on case studies and market analyses of biologically inspired products. Furthermore, the paper presents aspects of an effective knowledge transfer from science to industrial application, based on interviews with industrial partners. The accessibility of the methodological approach has led to promising advances in BID in practice. The findings can be used to increase the number of success stories by providing key steps toward the implementation and commercialization of BID products, and to point out necessary fields of cooperative research.

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