Course Outcome 4 Lecture:

INTRODUCTION TO BIOMIMETICS
CONCEPTS

BIO20 Prof. UREAH THEA A. SEVILLA

Introduction to Biomimetics Eng’g. and School of CHE-CHM-Biological Engineering and MSE
Component Design

Biomimetics Defined
• Biomimetics means the imitation of living things in nature.
• Biomimetics and biomimicry are both aimed at solving problems by
first examining, and then imitating or drawing inspiration from
models in nature.
• Biomimetics is the term used to describe the substances, equipment,
mechanisms and systems by which humans imitate natural systems
and designs, especially in the fields of defense, nanotechnology, robot
technology, and artificial intelligence.

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Approaches to Biomimicry
Biomimicry as a design process typically falls into two categories:
• Design looking to Biology - defining a human need or design problem
and looking to the ways other organisms or ecosystems solve this.
• Biology influencing Design - identifying a particular characteristic,
behaviour or function in an organism or ecosystem and translating
that into human designs.
(Biomimicry Guild, 2007).

Design looking to biology

• The approach where designers look to the living world for solutions,
requires designers to identify problems and biologists to then match
these to organisms that have solved similar issues.
• This approach is effectively led by designers identifying initial goals
and parameters for the design.

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Design looking to biology
• Example: The Bionic Car
Daimler Chrysler bionic car inspired by
the box fish and tree growth patterns.

Design looking to biology

• It is more efficient in terms of fuel use because the body is more
aerodynamic due to the mimicking of the box fish.
• It is also more materials efficient due to the mimicking of tree growth
patterns to identify the minimum amount of material need in the
structure of the car

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Biology influencing design
• When biological knowledge influences human design, the
collaborative design process is initially dependent on people having
knowledge of relevant biological or ecological research rather than on
determined human design problems.
• An example is the scientific analysis of the lotus flower emerging
clean from swampy waters, which led to many design innovations e.g.
Sto’s Lotusan paint which enables buildings to be self cleaning

Biology influencing design

• Sto’s Lotusan paint

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Levels of Mimicry
Three levels of mimicry:
• Organism - refers to a specific organism like a plant or animal and may
involve mimicking part of or the whole organism.
• Behaviour - refers to mimicking behaviour and may include translating
an aspect of how an organism behaves, or relates to a larger context.
• Ecosystem - mimicking of whole ecosystems and the common
principles that allow them to successfully function.

Possible Dimensions
The design may be biomimetic in terms of:
• Form - what it looks like
• Material - what it is made out of
• Construction - how it is made
• Process - how it works
• Function - what it is able to do

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Framework for the Application of Biomimicry

Framework for the Application of Biomimicry

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Framework for the Application of Biomimicry

Organism Level
• An example is the mimicking of the Namibian desert beetle,
stenocara (Garrod et al., 2007).
The beetle lives in a desert with negligible rainfall. It
is able to capture moisture however from the swift
moving fog that moves over the desert by tilting its
body into the wind.
Droplets form on the alternating hydrophilic –
hydrophobic rough surface of the beetle’s back and
wings and roll down into its mouth (Parker and
Lawrence, 2001).

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 Organism Level

Matthew Parkes of KSS Architects

demonstrates process biomimicry at the
organism level inspired by the beetle, with his
proposed fog-catcher design for the
Hydrological Center for the University of
Namibia (Killeen, 2002).

The surface of the beetle has been studied and mimicked to be used for other
potential applications such as to clear fog from airport runways and improve
dehumidification equipment for example Ravilious (2007) and Knight (2001).

Behavioral Level
• In behavior level biomimicry, it is not the organism itself that is mimicked,
but its behavior. It may be possible to mimic the relationships between
organisms or species in a similar way.
North American Beaver
Beavers alter their habitat
landscape creating
wetlands, and increasing
nutrient retention and plant
and animal diversity thus
help the ecosystem more
resilient to disturbance.

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Ecosystem Level
• The term ecomimicry has been used to describe the mimicking of
ecosystems in design (Lourenci et al., 2004; Russell, 2004), while
Marshall (2007) uses the term to mean a sustainable form of
biomimicry where the objective is the wellbeing of ecosystems and
people, rather than ‘power, prestige or profit’.
• Examples:
• John and Nancy Todd’s Living or Eco- Machines.
• The Australian developed Biolytix® system.

Ecosystem Level
• John and Nancy Todd’s Living or Eco Machines where the process of
waste water treatment in ecosystems is mimicked and also integrated
with plants (Todd, 2003, Todd and Josephson, 1996).

(Todd, Brown and Wells. Eco. Engg. 2003)

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Ecosystem Level
• The Australian developed Biolytix® system mimics soil based decomposition to
treat grey and black water and again integrates actual worms and soil microbes
(humus) into the process.

Biomimetics Applications: Robotics

• Just Like a Real Lobster, This Robot Will Identify Water Currents

Lobsters’ shape helps them resist tumbling or On the robot, micro-electro-mechanical

moving in fast-moving water. They are able to sensors (MEMS) imitate the lobster’s
proceed in the direction they want under the most sensory organs. Equipped with water
difficult conditions, even over very rough terrain. It current sensors and antennae, the robot
uses its hairs to determine the direction of can adapt its movements to the currents
currents. of the water around it.

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Biomimetics Applications: Architecture and Building
Designs
Architectural Designs Drawn from Spider Webs

Munich Olympic Stadium Munich Zoo Denver’s Airport

Biomimetics Applications:
Transport Vehicle Designs
• Owl Flight and High-Speed Train Noise
The major sources of aerodynamic noise are the
pantographs, or current collectors.
Engineers, realizing that they couldn’t reduce noise
levels with the conventional
rectangular pantographs, concentrated their research
on animals that move quickly, yet silently.
Of all birds, owls make the least noise during flight.
One of the ways they manage this is through the
plumes of their wings. In addition, an owl’s wings have
many small saw-toothed feathers (serrations) visible
even to the naked eye, which other birds lack.

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References
• Maibritt Pedersen Zari. Biomimetic Approaches, SB07. Victoria
University, New Zealand.
• Harun Yahya (2006). BIOMIMETICS: Technology Imitates Nature.
Global Publishing, Turkey.
• John Todd, Erica J.G. Brown and Erik Wells (2003). Ecological design
applied, Ecological Engineering 20, 421–440.

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