The Characterization of Biological Organization, Abstraction, and Novelty in Biomimetic Design

Abstract

Through billions of years of evolution, a latent record of successful and failed design practices has developed in nature. The endeavors to exploit this record have resulted in numerous successful products in various fields of engineering, including, but not limited to, networking, propulsion, surface engineering, and robotics. In this work, a study of existing biomimetic designs has been carried out by categorizing the designs according to the biological organizational level, the abstraction level, and a novelty measure. The criterion of novelty has been used as a partial measure of the quality of bio-inspired and biomimetic designs already introduced, or ready to be introduced to the market. Through this review and categorization, we recognize patterns in existing biomimetic and bio-inspired products by analyzing their cross-categorical distribution. Using the distribution, we identify the categories which yield novel bio-inspired designs. We also examine the distribution to identify less explored areas of bio-inspired design. Additionally, this study is a step forward in aiding the practitioners of biomimetics in identifying the categories which yield the highest novelty products in their area of interest.