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Biomimetic Engineering: Designing Solutions Inspired by Nature

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 Research Output Journal of Biological and Applied Science 3(2):45-48, 2024

ROJBAS Publications ONLINE ISSN: 1115-9200

https://rojournals.org/roj-biological-and-applied-science/ PRINT ISSN: 1115-6120

Page | 45

Biomimetic Engineering: Designing Solutions Inspired

by Nature
Mutumba Paul Timothy

Faculty of Science and Technology Kampala International University Uganda

ABSTRACT
Biomimetic engineering is a multidisciplinary approach that draws inspiration from biological systems to
create innovative and sustainable solutions in engineering and design. With the ongoing challenges of
biodiversity loss and climate change, this field offers valuable insights by emulating nature's time-tested
strategies. This paper explores the fundamental principles of biomimicry, emphasizing the role of
biological inspiration in design and innovation. It also delves into various applications of biomimetic
engineering, particularly in aerospace and aeronautics, where nature-inspired designs have led to
significant advancements. Despite its potential, biomimetic engineering faces challenges in integrating
knowledge from different scientific domains and applying it to practical engineering solutions. The paper
concludes with a discussion on the future directions of biomimetic engineering, highlighting the need for
interdisciplinary collaboration and continued research to fully harness the potential of nature-inspired
design.
Keywords: biomimetic engineering, nature-inspired design, biomimicry, sustainable engineering,
aerospace applications.

INTRODUCTION
Biomimetic engineering is a multidisciplinary field that values design solutions inspired by biological
processes. Currently, trends show diminishing biodiversity, extinction waves, and global climatic
alterations that encourage the pursuit of higher knowledge about life. Understanding models and systems
that have been optimized for billions of years in feature generation provides a new strategy with
promising and profitable applications in different engineering and scientific disciplines [1]. In the
architects and designers' community, the use of natural strategies has been strengthened in recent
decades. Considering the increasing popularity and applicability of natural designs, this article presents
an overview of the different fields covered by biomimicry as a group, as well as many interesting
examples used in the area of biomimetic engineering [2]. The biomimetic approach is used for the
generation of designs that are exactly or not anticipated by the biomaterial concerned. Users can use the
informational information gained from these systems for the construction of non-biological devices and
facilities. Generally, this new stage is referred to as bioinspired engineering, biologically inspired design,
and biomimetic engineering, and is widely used in different studies, including molecular science [3]. As
biomimetic systems are non-identical to the model systems, it is possible to find applications in diverse
fields outside the engineering system for the various biomimicry designs that have been reported. These
diverse applications of biomimicry would inspire us to report a number of recent developments in the
emerging field of the biomimetry field [4].
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF BIOMIMICRY
Biomimicry is the creative emulation of methods and systems occurring in nature to generate valuable
human solutions. Prior to exploiting biological inspiration for designing solutions, the one advocate
shows how the environment of a specific biological inspirational system can form and dictate the
characteristics, efficiency, and design of an organized, multi-faceted engineered disciplined system. Such
disciplines are designed using deterministic sequential design steps in a manner that allows each step to

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
serve as a functional guide to all subsequent steps. The alternative advocate challenges these conventional
ideas through multiscale, organizational biology, and stewards the discovery and development of grouped
biological systems as a source of inspiration for engineered technology [5].
This perspective relies on the foundational principles of products evolving within ecosystems, utilizing
metabolic energy well through long-term recursive optimization processes – survival of the stable. This
thinking is complementary with a heuristic problem control-dominated approach, such as fuzzy logic and
evolutionary strategy modeling, since it is based on descriptive information that is fundamentally derived Page | 46
from random "field visits" to available biological and physical systems, rather than deterministic
knowledge. Since these are already optimized to their environments, a strong correlation between process
outputs and the biological world can emerge [6].
BIOLOGICAL INSPIRATION
Biological inspiration, also known as biomimicry, is a critical element of biomimetic engineering.
Biomimicry is the practice of drawing inspiration from natural systems. The prefix "bio-" is clear enough,
and the suffix "-mimic" comes from the Greek word meaning to imitate. In short, biomimicry is the
imitation of life, which could also be seen as a respect for life and an understanding that natural systems
have had far longer to evolve solutions than any one designer or design team. Even mentioning the term
"biomimicry" is somewhat redundant from an entire field of biomimetics. However, when other terms like
biomimicry, bionics, and their derivatives are used in discussions concerning engineering, they often
involve variations or subsets of more purely biological problems and phenomena [7]. Natural inspiration
exerts a powerful pull, and throughout history, people have sought to harness its power in their designs.
These new forays into biomimetic research are being fueled by an increasing need to solve problems in
sustainable ways, driven in part by public and industry demand, as well as interest in biological
"advances" and novel forms of inspiration. Many of these could be seen as the return to or the extension
of a "natural philosophy" concept of the body as a system of systems in continuous exchange with its
environment. Whether the questions are posed as "How would nature solve this?" "Is there a model for
this in nature?" "Can we harness biology?" or "What are the biological solutions?", they all come back to
a desire to unlock novel, efficacious, and sustainable solutions to human problems in a rapidly changing
world [8].
APPLICATIONS OF BIOMIMETIC ENGINEERING
Biomimetic engineering is a diverse field with versatile applications. Areas of engineering and design
impacted by biomimetics include aeronautical engineering, aerospace, automotive design and transport,
materials science and architecture, wind and water turbines, transportation, company processes, medicine
and medical devices, military and defense, and exoskeletons for human use. Several successful
implementations have been designed and constructed. This report focuses on aerospace and aeronautics
and the applications in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and passenger aircraft, as they are
representative examples of the use of biomimetic designs in engineering and serve a wide segment of the
population [9]. Aerospace and aeronautics companies utilize nature-inspired designs at every level of
product design, in drones, UAVs, and passenger aircraft, spacecraft, engine design, and manufacturing.
Bird, bat, manta ray, bee, and fish imitations have gone from laboratory bench to market.
Multidisciplinary teams of biologists, engineers, composite specialists, and CAD-CAM professionals work
together to create solutions that are efficient, effective, and simple to construct and operate. Examples of
functional UAV and aircraft solutions include: a research mission aimed at understanding the manta ray's
propulsion, demonstrating energy recuperation in an aerial vehicle capable of flying one-way from Canada
to Scotland where it was demonstrated at a wind turbine facility, military research to develop a small
aerial vehicle capable of rapid drone emulation in order to test battlefield radar systems, and a bee-sized
flapping-wing aircraft solution designed to operate in a swarm that adopts principles of filtration feeding
common in undersea organisms to separate particulates from air and concentrate them for sample
collection [10].
AEROSPACE AND AERONAUTICS
AEROSPACE
Biomimetic Engineering designs various systems that imitate birds and insects, like biomimetic vehicles
or pump systems, but applied in an industrial environment. There is work related to launching systems
like electromagnetic launch systems imitating the high acceleration of engineers or snails or sharks,
which can perform high acceleration charging. There is work presented which designs miniaturized
flapping systems as well as helicopter seeds for micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs). Other examples are
bioinspired micro air vehicles. Bio-inspired morphing and motion-changing actuators are designed that
create the agile flight of the best flying birds and are known from the flight of butterflies. Biomimetic

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
optimization is performed to reduce the power induced by the flapping wings mainly caused by the
flapping movements. Finally, bio-inspired methods are presented that detect airflow in micro machined
flow sensors [11].
AERONAUTICS
Natural models are designed to enhance aeronautic components. Biomimetic design is often applied to fix
the problems computers cannot solve, like increasing the strength of materials or creating functional
structure design with complex load paths. High-lift systems onboard. Ultra-thin aircraft wings learn from Page | 47
the bodies of dragonflies without using active flow control (AFC) systems or separation-preventing
surfaces. Indeed, morphing wings are inspired by the natural model of the basic design of the shape of a
bird's wings. A helicopter blade, bio-inspired by the flapping of the wings of a fly, pushes sufficient fluid
underneath the solid side of the fin to enable its free movement, while solid aerofoils influenced by birds'
and insects' wings lift a seaplane from water. A compound rotor-wing system lands with a very steep
approach. An unsteady airflow generated by a dragonfly wing influences a device-assisted airflow around
a wing-profile aircraft. It is better suited for large aircraft due to its open-loop control basis [12].
CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This section discusses the main challenges in biomimetic engineering, advances of the past review, and
proposes future research directions. It is not simple to gather two research fields that share the same
inspiration but for many aspects, are reserved for different scientific communities: one primarily
interested in finding "how" nature performs and one in understanding "why" or what the purpose of a
mechanism is. For this reason, the new field of "Biomimetics" has to face the risk of borrowing knowledge
from another scientific domain without fully exploring and exploiting the original concepts introduced by
the research area of "Bioinspiration" [13]. Another strong difficulty of biomimetic engineering is that the
scientific community does not have a precise idea of what the bio-world is. The biomaterial is probably
one of the most complex multicomponent, multiscale assemblies of interacting structures. The biological
systems observed are possibly the results of a natural-driven trial and error experimentation that took
multi-million years to be designed and optimized. The typical mechanism of convergence seen as a
strategy for natural systems could be turned into an advantage for a biomimetic approach. The bio-world
shows a lot of solutions designed by trial and error, and in many cases improved toward a highest degree
of perfection [14]. The concept of biomimetic engineering, focused on sustainable and environmentally
friendly alternatives, is still in its early stages. There are challenges in transferring knowledge and
expertise between different communities. Future research in biomimetics will focus on finding the most
promising methodology to integrate bioscience into engineering. A biomimetic approach must consider
the complexity of the environment and utilize strategies from the bio-world to optimize designs. While
there are various techniques and tools available, not all are tailored to adaptive, evolutionary designing.
Nonetheless, they provide a useful reference for comparing different systems [15].
CONCLUSION
Biomimetic engineering stands as a promising field that merges biology with engineering to develop
sustainable and efficient solutions. By learning from nature's optimized processes, engineers and
designers can create innovations that are not only effective but also environmentally friendly. The
application of biomimicry in aerospace and aeronautics exemplifies the potential of this approach to
revolutionize industries. However, the field must overcome challenges related to interdisciplinary
integration and the complexity of biological systems. Future research should focus on enhancing
collaboration between biologists and engineers, developing methodologies that better capture the
intricacies of natural systems, and applying these insights to a broader range of engineering challenges.
As the demand for sustainable solutions grows, biomimetic engineering will likely play an increasingly
vital role in shaping the future of technology and design.
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CITATION: Mutumba Paul Timothy. Biomimetic Engineering: Designing Solutions

Inspired by Nature. Research Output Journal of Biological and Applied Science, 2024
3(2):45-48

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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