Biomimetics from practical feedback to an interdisciplinary process

Abstract

Biomimetics has been a subject of increasing interest but, where it has proven its scientific relevance and innovative potential from a theoretical standpoint, it remains rarely used in practice. Facing this lack of implementation, our work aimed at asking practitioners for their help to better understand the remaining impediments preventing biomimetics' blooming. Thus, practitioners' feedback and experts' opinion on risks, adequacy and weaknesses of the current biomimetic practices were gathered and structured to present an extensive descriptive phase on biomimetic processes. Key levers for improvements, such as the need for a better risk management, the need for biological expertise and the need for clear guidance during the process, were then identified. Based on these insights various methodological contributions are prescribed. Among these inputs, the duration of the various steps of the biomimetic process was estimated through industrial projects' feedback, semantics misunderstandings were tackled, and the integration of a new transdisciplinary profile combining an expertise in both design and biology is proposed. From these improvements, a new version of the unified problem-driven biomimetic process is proposed. A final descriptive phase performed through the evaluation of the new process by professionals underlined its relevancy along with the remaining research axes. Through the integration of a new profile matching the practitioners' current needs and the adaptation of the process to their feedback, this article aims at proposing a biomimetic process fitting the reality of biomimetic practice in order to support its implementation.

Biomimetics for innovative and future-oriented space applications - A review

“…Moreover, biomimetic design and the process of investigating biological models is associated with great uncertainty as research does not always pan out to be applicable to technology. While this is true for most fields of research, the lack of systematic approaches, strategies and guidelines highlights this uncertainty further (Graeff et al, 2021). Even when biological models are sufficiently understood, their complexity often exceeds available technical capabilities and thus need to be scaled back during the implementation phase.…”

Understanding the Use of Bio-Inspired Design Tools by Industry Professionals

“…To utilize knowledge from biology, engineers and designers must first be able to comprehend it, then translate it into a context that is relevant to the problem they are solving. One way to do this would be to have a biologist as part of the team [ 10 , 11 ]. Another way is to introduce tools and processes for practicing BID.…”

The Education Pipeline of Biomimetics and Its Challenges

“…Because of the appeal of looking to natural systems for potential solutions, there is a breadth of people all different in motivation, experience, and training, who are engaging in biomimetic practice [ 2 ]. On the one hand, these include biomimeticians [ 3 ] educated in biomimetics specifically. On the other hand, and in the majority, this includes biologists, engineers, architects, and designers, in academic, industrial, and governmental settings, using biomimetics as a design methodology with no or limited formal education specific to biomimetic practice.…”

“…To successfully focus our attention on the teaching of biology and of knowledge translation and transfer, and to not get “lost in knowledge translation” [ 41 ], we must study how non-biologists learn about nature and use biological information, how it is understood and/or misunderstood, and how it is used, shared, and valued so that we can integrate the use of biological systems knowledge into design, and support a culture change in the next generation of designers to include nature-inspired solutions. With a growing number and increasing experience of professional biomimeticians [ 3 ], those trained in biomimetics specifically and with knowledge of biology and design, there is an opportunity to describe the biomimetics education pipeline fully. If successful, we will be addressing one of the big challenges in Biom*, that is, “to educate new generations of would-be-designers in the paradigm of biologically inspired design” who address real problems [ 42 ] (p. xiii).…”