Researchers from Georgia Tech have developed SBF models to represent biological mechanism. What are advantages and disadvantages of developing and using these SBF models?
SBF modelling (also see FBS modelling) can be helpful when trying to understand complex systems. The aim is to explicitly identify how `systemic components' [structures], functions and behaviours are interrelated. The following paper outlines the type of SBF models used in the research at GA tech:Article Structure, behavior, and function of complex systems: The st...
Note that SBF models were actually not created to represent biological systems, but to create a functional representation of engineering systems. An example of research at Georgia Tech that uses SBF models without looking at biological systems is:
Article Discovery of Physical Principles from Design Experiences
The way I always understood it, early SBF modelling research at GA Tech (like the Kritik system described in the reference above) inspired the possible applicability of this work for Biologically Inspired Design (BID). See for example the amazing work on BID by Swaroop Vattam
The main benefit of using SBF modelling during BID is that it can help understand how complex biological systems behave/function. If a biological system is not too complex, however, it does not make much sense to create an SBF model. The reason is that learning how to create SBF models is a time-consuming task already, and creating the model takes time as well. But creating a model takes even more time when you are dealing with a complex biological system, especially if you know little biology (it can be hard to identify relevant and correct structures, functions and behaviours). As an example, "we found that constructing a “complete” SBF model of a complex biological system requires between forty (40) and one hundred (100) hours of work." (note that 100 hours is about 3 working weeks!), source:
Conference Paper DANE: Fostering Creativity in and through Biologically Inspired Design
A more fundamental issue is that biological systems cannot always easily be understood as engineering systems (e.g., seeConference Paper Modeling biological systems to facilitate their selection du...
and alsoArticle Towards a Design Process for Computer-Aided Biomimetics
). There are definitely benefits of modelling biological systems, even using functional modelling methods like SBF. But SBF may not be the best model for BID, at least not for all purposes. Have a look at the the following paper, which concludes "However, there is an urgent and critical need to empirically establish that functional representations of biological systems in fact facilitate deeper understanding of biological systems." source:Conference Paper The Effect of Functional Modeling on Understanding Complex B...
It's not that easy to answer your question with a list of advantages and disadvantages, but hopefully this helps!
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Modeling