Challenges in biomimetic design and innovation

Biomimetic design copies desired principles found in nature and implement them into artificial applications. Applications could be products we use in our daily life but it can also be used to inspire material innovation. However there are significant challenges in performing biomimetic design. One challenge is illustrated by the beetle project which analyse photonic nanostructures in beetle shells in order to synthesise surface coatings. It shows that understanding the complexity in nature is far from being a trivial task. It involves the understanding of knowledge from different scientific domains including the terminology and knowledge organisation. It is often easy to recognise the splendour of a biological solution, but it can be much more difficult to understand the underlying mechanisms. Another challenge in biomimetic design is the search and identification of relevant solutions in nature. This is a key issue in design and innovation work where problem identification and systematic search for suitable solution principle are major activities. One way to deal with this challenge is to use a biology search method. The use of such a method is illustrated with a case story describing the design of a microgripper.