Different design methods provide thinking tools that can be helpful during BID. Overall, however, there is not one single design method that works well for the entire BID process. Pierre-Emmanuel Fayemi and Kristina Wanieck investigated which tools and design methods work for BID, check out their work! For example: Conference Paper Bio-inspired design characterisation and its links with prob...

Article Biomimetics and its Tools

Mapping between the biology and engineering domains usually requires some abstraction. BioTRIZ provides examples of such abstractions, although the method is by no means a complete representation of biology. An iterative approach like C-K theory is helpful when making abstractions yourself. You could then think about using a transfer model (such as SBF, SAPPhIRE, etc.) to structure information - this may help you identify functional analogies. However, biology is not always easily understood in terms of engineering functions. Also see one of our papers (joint work with a.o. M.P.Y. Desmulliez and Julian Francis Vincent Vincent):

Article Towards a Design Process for Computer-Aided Biomimetics

The reason biology is not easily understood in functions is that it is hard to identify biological problems. Reasons include that there is no 'designer' that willingly implemented a solution to a problem. And while a biological solution may have evolved, it is often not clear what problem(s) influenced selection - making it so that this biological solution remained part of the gene pool. Biologists do, however, investigate the constraints that biological systems experienced in terms of trade-offs. As an example of what trade-offs are and how they are used by biologists, you could have a look at:

Article Trade-off Mechanisms Shaping the Diversity of Bacteria

Selecting the appropriate biological model is to a large extent based on your own knowledge of the biology. Methods may exist to help selecting a model during Design-by-Analogy. But if you do not have a good grasp of the biology it may be hard to use such methods. Again, an iterative approach can help you learn more about the biological models you may be interested in and help selection. As the designer/engineer you should be aware of specific limitations that may guide selection, e.g., temperature requirements.

Completion is based on whether you have solved the problem following any constraints you specify (costs etc). You could argue that completing a functional prototype is the end-point, but that might depend on the problem and solution.

Dear Ruben Kruiper ：

I'm glad you answered my question. I have read many of your articles before you answered my question. Maybe I'm blunt, and after reading your recommended article, I still do n' t get the answer.

A majority of articles state the tools used in the BID process(Including AskNature,DANE, and so on). Yet there are few theoretical approaches to how to accomplish engineering —— biology —— engineering solutions. I've read a lot of literature in the last month. Only BIO-TRIZ and C-K theory meet the requirements (My lab brother has finished these two tasks). So I'd like to ask if there are any other theoretical approaches that can do a good job of mapping between biology and engineering.

In addition, in today's bionic design process, a creature has not met the requirements of bionic. For example, the product I designed is based on the different characteristics of multiple organisms, including function, shape, strategy, etc. In this process, what theoretical methods can be used to realize the mapping and transformation relationship between biological field and engineering field?

Dear Fan Shuai,

Don't worry about being blunt!

Let me first make a distinction between design theories, methods and tools, as well as 'transfer models':

• C-K theory is a (domain agnostic) design theory that makes explicit the need for iteration during a design process. Such an iterative strategy works well for BID. One reason is that BID often involves multiple biological analogies, e.g., your own design relies on functions, shapes, etc. from various organisms. It is unlikely that a single iteration allows you to identify all relevant biological information to solve an engineering problem through BID. Notably, other theoretical approaches exist besides C-K theory and TRIZ (the theory behind BioTRIZ). Many BID tools (AskNature, IDEA-INSPIRE, IBID, etc.) actually follow a functional modelling approach.
• BioTRIZ is a method/procedure that relies on TRIZ as a theory and a tool (one could argue that BioTRIZ is a rearranged version of the TRIZ matrix of inventive principles).
• AskNature and IBID are BID tools. Such tools usually help you identify biological analogies that are relevant to your problem, and they provide insight in how to transfer the analogy between domains. To that end, BID tools may work best using a specific method and underlying design theory.
• I use the term 'transfer models' for SBF and SAPPhIRE models (IBID uses SBF models). These are tools that help you identify systemic components, processes and interrelations that are able to fulfil some role/action in a biological system.

When it comes to the mapping of information between biology and engineering, I assume you are interested in methods/tools that support (1) the abstraction of relevant information and (2) the transfer between domains. One of the articles I recommended above (Biomimetics and its Tools) investigates which tools support such steps. Abstraction is largely dependent on the user's expertise in biology and engineering. But tools exist that help you model a biological system in a way that works well for engineers (IBID uses SBF modelling, IDEA INSPIRE uses SAPPhIRE models, more theoretical models exist). These modelling tools can guide abstraction, but they also facilitate the transfer from biology to engineering by identifying causal explanations for functions.

So, if you are asking which methods can help you transfer between biology and engineering: start by having a look at BID papers on SBF and SAPPhIRE models. Try several approaches and see which one you like, or what works well for your project.

However, I do not regard functional modelling as a "theoretical approach that does a good job mapping information between biology and engineering":

• The use of functional modelling during BID relies on the understanding of biological systems as engineering systems. This can be helpful when mapping information from biology to engineering, although it can lead to simplification and/or wrong interpretations of the biological system (especially when lacking biological expertise - also, this is where iterative design like C-K theory is helpful). When searching for relevant analogies one aims to map engineering information to the biological domain. Here, the functional approach does not work well unless you search for existing solutions in a database like AskNature (where information is categorised by and described in engineering terminology).

A TRIZ-inspired approach using the concept of trade-offs does a good job at mapping information between the two domains. If you're interested in this approach, I recommend you start by reading:

Article The Trade-off – A Central Concept for Biomimetics

Hopefully this answers your question! But let me know if not.

Kind regards,

Ruben

Dear Ruben Kruiper

Thank you again for your reply.

I just read your article(The trade-off: a central conceptfor biomimetics). And read the article on ontology (An Ontology of Biomimetics). It may be a problem caused by different languages (I need to use translation software to translate articles into Chinese), or it may be because my knowledge is relatively shallow. I can't understand the concept of ontology. From the article you recommend, I don't Understand the analogy or mapping between engineering and biology (or engineering problems-biology-engineering solutions).

I feel that the article you recommend is an extension of TRIZ method. I don't know how table 1 in the article got. In addition, how table 11.1 and figure 11.4 of the article (An Ontology of Biomimetics)are obtained. I guess it could be a bionic tool that your lab is working on or need to visit the website (http://wiki.bath.ac.uk/display/OOB/.) . Visiting this site in my country is a failure,

About your last reply, i would like to ask what IBID mean. I had a look at BID papers on SBF and SAPPhIRE models. There is still no good way to combine biological and engineering fields into bionic product design.

And that's mentioned last time. I found that many of the biomimetic designs mentioned in the article are just biological designs (such as self-cleaning devices using lotus leaves). Let's say, the product I' ve designed refers to a number of organisms.( such as designing a pipeline robot. It refers to the adsorption of gecko's feet and the peristaltic behavior of earthworms). In the process, how should I complete the transformation and mapping or analogy between engineering problems-biological-engineering solutions?

In addition, I an article from my lab. My research direction is similar.

Dear Fan,

I can imagine that it is hard to read automatic translations of scientific texts. Consider the translation of scientific texts from English to Chinese; there may be some terms that cannot be translated easily. Similarly, biology contains specific terms that cannot be translated to engineering easily. But biology is not just different in the language used from engineering. These domains are fundamentally different, e.g., descriptive vs. prescriptive and functions in biology do not carry a notion of teleology.

"I can't understand the concept of ontology."

• I do not think the meaning of 'ontology' is important to answering your question. But If you want to understand better what an ontology (in computer science) is, the following publication provides a reasonable introduction/overview:

Chapter What Are Ontologies Good For?

"I feel that the article you recommend is an extension of TRIZ method. [...]"

• Exactly! I mentioned that this TRIZ-inspired approach relies on trade-offs. A trade-off exists when an increase in one trait, that improves fitness, is coupled to a decrease in another trait, which reduces fitness (similar to TRIZ contradictions). These trade-offs are relevant to sub-domains of biology such as evolutionary biology, physiology, behavioural ecology, and functional morphology. As a result, a subset of all biology papers investigates whether (1) a trade-off exists in some biological system and (2) what strategy the system uses to (if only partially) overcome that trade-off.
• Table 1 is created by reading such biology papers and identifying a trade-off and relevant solution principle described in the text. The TRIZ contradiction matrix lends itself to categorise the biological trade-offs, while the biological solution strategies can be classified into Inventive Principles -- this is where a mapping between biology and engineering is provided.
• In this case, the creation of table 1 is done by hand. In our lab, we developed a tool to support that task, e.g., by automatically identifying the trade-off in a text;

Preprint In Layman's Terms: Semi-Open Relation Extraction from Scientific Texts

"About your last reply, i would like to ask what IBID mean. [...]"

• The Intelligent Biologically Inspired Design (IBID) system was developed at Prof. Ashok Goel's lab, like the DANE system you mentioned. This system tries to automatically identify SBF models from biological texts.

"There is still no good way to combine biological and engineering fields into bionic product design."

• Could you clarify what you mean with combining both fields in a good way? In the end you are the designer/engineer that has to compose aspects of functionality, shape, etc in a way that works. There is no system or method to automatically design a 'creative' or 'innovative' biomimetic solution to your engineering problem.

----- Regarding the attached paper

"In addition, I an article from my lab. My research direction is similar."

Thank you. This paper mentions various design methods and creativity tools to assist the designer in finding biological inspiration. The proposed system relies heavily on functional modelling. Does this mean you are also using functional modelling in your research?

Admittedly, I find the paper a little hard to follow. I expected the paper to be about the redesign of a disk brake. But it also proposes a design tool for ecological innovation, where magic the gathering cards are used to inspire novice designers. Biological systems are structured following a Function-Tactic-Action-Structure model, presumably inspired by SBF and SAPPhIRE models. It is not clear where biological information inside the system is sourced from. The local database seems to be a restructuring of AskNature? The actual disk brake solution seems very similar to the cited work [29] Gao, Y.Y.: Bionic Construction of Brake Disc's [...], as well as:

Article Bionic Design and Stress Field Analysis of Brake Disc’s Surf...

The paper mentions "one-to-one mapping is used to realize the transformation between biological knowledge and engineering". To this end the causal relation template by Cheong and Shu (2013) is used:

Article Using templates and mapping strategies to support analogical...

Note that the aim of this work is to identify relevant biological phenomena. The template does not provide a method to transfer a biological phenomena to an engineering solution. It simply models causal interrelations, which helps you map between engineering and biological concepts.

Finally, do you mean your research direction is similar (1) because you are redesigning a disk brake, or (2) because you are developing a Computer-Aided Biomimetics system?

Kind regards,

Ruben

Dear Ruben

I never expected you to reply so quickly. Thank you very much. Don't mind if I have some incorrect language expressions, because I use translation software to translate.

"There is still no good way to combine biological and engineering fields into bionic product design.

I need to apply knowledge of biology (including biological behavior, strategy, function, principle, etc.) to product design in engineering .And that's why I' m looking for BID literature and knowledge.

My research direction is similar

Disc brakes are just an example. My research work is theoretical research. I need to find a better theory or method to apply biological knowledge to product design. Disc brakes are just an example of the correctness of a theoretical method.( I personally don't study disc brakes).

It means that my research direction is product integrated design (combined with biology). My lab brother's thesis is to apply biological knowledge to product design in a variety of ways (including C-K theory, BIO-TRIZ、QFD, etc). If there is no better way, perhaps I should also use these methods?

The proposed system relies heavily on functional modelling. Does this mean you are also using functional modelling in your research?

That's what the brothers wrote, Can not be applicable to functional modeling, but is there a better way than functional modeling?

You didn't answer the previous question.

I found that many of the biomimetic designs mentioned in the article are just biological designs (such as self-cleaning devices using lotus leaves). Let's say, the product I' ve designed refers to a number of organisms.( such as designing a pipeline robot. It refers to the adsorption of gecko's feet and the peristaltic behavior of earthworms). In the process, how should I complete the transformation and mapping or analogy between engineering problems-biological-engineering solutions?

There are many articles written in my lab, but in Chinese. Perhaps you can read these articles and see my research direction and what I want to do.

Kind regards,

fan

Dear Fan,

Your research sounds very interesting, and I am looking forward to see what you come up with! Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to read the publications you provided and comment. But thank you for sending them.

"I need to find a better theory or method to apply biological knowledge to product design."

There are a couple of things you could keep in mind:

• Biomimetics is a cross-domain type of Design-by-Analogy. Imagine that biomimetics was not cross-domain, then biological systems and engineering systems could be understood using the same concepts. It would be possible to use regular engineering methods/knowledge to design your products. Which methods would you use then? As you can see in existing BID research, engineers tend to use functional modelling methods in this case. With respect to combining information from multiple analogies/systems, I do believe this is exactly when it can be helpful to use, e.g., SBF modelling. So to answer your question "is there a better way than functional modeling?" probably not if you make the assumption that biological systems can be modelled as engineering systems.
• The underlying issue, however, is that biomimetics is cross-domain and biological systems can (often) hardly be understood as engineering systems. That means biological systems are usually not investigated to be understood in terms of functions and isolated components. So if you, as an engineer, want to transfer the peristaltic behaviour of earthworms [edit: What is the reason you do not look at other worms and snakes and ...?] - you usually start by modelling this specific system from scratch (unless you can find someone else's model). Once you have established a model, you could try to replace certain biological components and interrelations with engineering equivalents. Note that the biological model may not be the optimal solution, and it may simply serve as an inspiration for a conceptual solution. Or you could imagine how models of other biological systems, e.g., gecko feet [Why specifically gecko feet? What else could you use and why?], can feed in to a compound solution. Again, iteratively creating conceptual/functional models can help.

"I found that many of the biomimetic designs mentioned in the article are just biological designs (such as self-cleaning devices using lotus leaves)."

I agree. Most examples of biomimetics are solution-driven, like Velcro and the lotus effect. The differences between biology and engineering make it hard for engineers to identify/select/understand suitable biological analogies for their engineering problems. Often, the same biological analogies are used, e.g., because an engineering model already exists or because the engineer is not aware of alternatives. A major problem in biomimetics remains the lack of a systematic approach to search for biological systems beyond what has already been described, e.g., in a database AskNature. This is where a more abstract mapping between biology and engineering can help, e.g., TRIZ-inspired [edit: The aim is also to increase the biological diversity of biomimetic solutions! Where engineers consider biological systems beyond known solutions, like gecko feet, and familiar organisms, like earth worms.]

What you seem to be looking for is a method that both (1) enables the search for biology information [engineering to biology -- ideally all of biology and not a limited set of known examples], and (2) enables the transfer of this information to engineering [biology to engineering]. The first and second goal do not align well if you focus on engineering concepts like function - this is my issue with functional modelling. But, if you have already identified the biological systems, e.g., for the design of a pipeline robot, you could still try to use engineering methods (such as functional modelling) to help you model and understand the biological systems. The choice of engineering method(s) will probably be based on how much expertise you have with these methods, and how detailed you want the model to be.

Whether you'd like to investigate the same methods as your lab brother is up to you. Again, also have a look at P.-E. Fayemi his work and work by his co-authors. Alternatively, you could have a look at our work into understanding biological systems from the perspective of multi-objective optimisation - using trade-offs and Pareto analysis.

Once you publish your findings, please add it to ResearchGate so I will be notified :)

Kind regards,

Ruben

Dear Fan,

A couple of articles that you may might consider:

Ashok Goel, Kaylin Hagopian, Shimin Zhang, and Spencer Rugaber. ( ).Towards a Virtual Librarian for Biologically Inspired Design. Design Computing and Cognition DCC’20. J.S. Gero (ed), pp. 377-395. © Springer 2021.

Fu, K., Moreno, D., Yang, M., & Wood, K. L. (2014). Bio-inspired design: an overview investigating open questions from the broader field of design-by-analogy. Journal of Mechanical Design, 136(11).

Best Regards

Dear Kristin Lee Wood

Thank you for your reply

I can't find the first paper.Can you send it directly to me?

In addition, can you recommend several bionic applications, similar to the design of water storage structures based on the lotus effect, the design of more powerful fans based on the tail fin of humpback whales, and so on.

You may look at a book I co-authored

Cohen, Y. H., & Reich, Y. (2016). Biomimetic design method for innovation and sustainability. Berlin, Germany:: Springer.

In the book, we reviewed existing methods and developed one that allows you to start from an engineering challenge, find sources in nature, and analyze them to extract useful information. The latter task is not so easy.

Parts of the ideas appeared before in:

Helfman Cohen, Y., Reich, Y., & Greenberg, S. (2014). Biomimetics: structure–function patterns approach. Journal of Mechanical Design, 136(11).

As an innovative design method, BID still has a long way to go. This is produced by the interdisciplinary nature of BID. At present, many existing tools can be integrated into BID. However, there remains a need to develop new tools for BID. We can focus on a small spot in this field and try to solve it. Then, through the efforts of the entire community, the gap of across-domains will be slowly closed.

You may start your research by reading several books and literature reviews:

Farzaneh, H. H., & Lindemann, U. (2018). A practical guide to bio-inspired design. Springer.

Cohen, Y. H., & Reich, Y. (2016). Biomimetic design method for innovation and sustainability. Springer.

Goel, A. K., McAdams, D. A., & Stone, R. B. (2015). Biologically inspired design. London: Springer.

Fayemi, P. E., Wanieck, K., Zollfrank, C., Maranzana, N., & Aoussat, A. (2017). Biomimetics: process, tools and practice. Bioinspiration & biomimetics, 12(1), 011002.

Fu, K., Moreno, D., Yang, M., & Wood, K. L. (2014). Bio-inspired design: an overview investigating open questions from the broader field of design-by-analogy. Journal of Mechanical Design, 136(11).

Shu, L. H., Ueda, K., Chiu, I., & Cheong, H. (2011). Biologically inspired design. CIRP annals, 60(2), 673-693.

Vincent, J. F. V. (2009). Biomimetics—a review. Proceedings of the institution of mechanical engineers, part H: Journal of Engineering in Medicine, 223(8), 919-939.

Dear Fan Shuai,

One way to do this is through Systems & Requirements Engineering (SRE) observing in form of biomimetics.

It would be necessary to absorb knowledge of problem in biology via problem domain, to write and elicit appropriate requirements that can be properly interpreted with premises of stakeholders. After that, continue with tests and trials for possible technical solutions (solution domain) which may reflect original biological problem.

I think to apply most common analysis techniques and then, with the requirements finalized, to apply the specific techniques of SRE, until satisfying objective. Remembering to prepare specific documentation to measure and establish the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) in each test stage.

Regards,

Prof. Wiltgen

A good research lab with relevant references of Intelligent Biologically Inspired Design

https://dilab.gatech.edu/ibid/

There is always a problem with getting a wider and deeper understanding of the filed where we work, it takes decades to reach a reasonable overview. Hence, it is always good to dedicate some time to study neighboring or completely distant research areas that are related to the problem under the consideration. It often brings new insights and inspiration.

Complex systems are studying the types of problems you are mentioning in all scientific disciplines, including the biology and medicine. It would be good to read the following review:

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Complex-Systems-in-Physics-Biology-and-Medicine-Backgrounds-Understanding-Modeling-and-Software/update/6186589fb3729f0f619156ed

and other research shared there. Please, remember the term bio-inspired computing, self-organization, emergent behavior, self-repair, robustness, self-healing, self-replication, and similar terms. This all is researched within the scope of complex systems: computationally and theoretically.

I had written with co-authors one review on Complexity in biology and medicine, it might serve as another starting review in your search:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330546521_Complex_Systems_and_Their_Use_in_Medicine_Concepts_Methods_and_Bio-Medical_Applications

In recent time, in this and other mine projects occurred links to books, software, and research on robustness in biocomputing. Complex system project dealing with Medicine focuses mainly on experimental evidence of complexity phenomena.

Robustness should be understood in the following way, you have a computing medium that has high error rate (percents), yet the computation continue on without disruption. This approach can revolutionaries theory of computation in highly challenging and hardware damaging environments! Like in the space where computer chips get hit by high energy particles.