Table Of ContentHelena Hashemi Farzaneh
Udo Lindemann
A Practical Guide to
Bio-inspired Design
A Practical Guide to Bio-inspired Design
Helena Hashemi Farzaneh · Udo Lindemann
A Practical Guide to
Bio-inspired Design
Helena Hashemi Farzaneh Udo Lindemann
Laboratory for Product Development Laboratory for Product Development
and Lightweight Design and Lightweight Design
Technical University of Munich Technical University of Munich
Garching, Germany Garching, Germany
ISBN 978-3-662-57683-0 ISBN 978-3-662-57684-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-57684-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950041
Springer Vieweg
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage
and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does
not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are
believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors
give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions
that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer Vieweg imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of
Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Preface
Bio-inspired design – mentioning this term to anyone immediately draws atten-
tion. Most people feel intrigued by the idea of bio-inspired design; looking at na-
ture and its solutions to solve technical challenges. Nature is fascinating for us.
Since the beginnings of humanity it has inspired our culture. Arts, literature, archi-
tecture, design, and technology have all profited from nature as a source of inspi-
ration. Therefore, bio-inspired design seems to present obvious solutions to us, de-
signers from all disciplines, whenever we are stuck and have no ideas on how to
solve a technical challenge.
Still, bio-inspiration is not a very widespread innovation method. For example,
in Germany, only very few universities offer courses in bio-inspired design. Even
the number of lectures addressing bio-inspired design is quite small. If we ask pro-
fessional engineers and designers, the use of bio-inspired design methods seems to
be almost unknown in research and development departments of engineering
companies. If bio-inspired design is applied, it often does not go beyond regarding
obvious biological systems as inspirations, for example analyzing humans for de-
veloping a humanoid robot. The application of methodological bio-inspired design
seems to be rare. There are just a few cases in which engineering designers have
systematically searched for the most suitable biological inspiration for their specif-
ic technical challenge. The cases in which biologists have attempted to transfer a
biological solution over to a technical application are even fewer.
Why is this so? Almost all of us know some classic examples of bio-inspired
design. Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of technical machines based on natural in-
spirations are famous. Very well-known is also the invention of Velcro® in the
mid-20th century: the Swiss engineer Georges de Mestral was on a walk with his
dog when the burrs clinging to his dog’s fur caught his attention. He analyzed
these burrs under the microscope and developed the famous hook-and-loop fasten-
er. In the mid-20th century the research interest in bio-inspired design also in-
creased. Many authors name the Bionics Symposium that took place at the Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio in 1960 as the beginning of systematic research ef-
forts towards bio-inspired design. The Symposium was entitled “Living Prototypes
– the Key to New Technology” and predicted that technical fields such as electron-
ics, aeronautics, and guidance and control could profit from bio-inspired design. A
major challenge of bio-inspired design was attributed to the complexity of biolog-
ical systems (Keto 1960).
The complexity of biological systems is certainly one of the major challenges
of bio-inspired design, even today. Despite the enormous advances of the disci-
pline of biology, biological knowledge is difficult to access for laypersons and dif-
ficult to apply in bio-inspired designs. Providing support for this challenge is the
main aim of this book. We believe that the use of outlined methods can greatly fa-
cilitate bio-inspired design and improve the feasibility of its outcomes. Bio-
inspired design methods are therefore the key to spreading bio-inspired design as
an innovation method.
VI Preface
The entire team of the Institute of Product Development at the Technical Uni-
versity of Munich supported us in conceptualizing this book. We would like to
thank the whole team for the valuable discussions about bio-inspired design and
bio-inspired design methods. In particular, we would like to thank Maria Kathari-
na Helms for her contribution to bio-inspired design research at the Institute and to
the concept of this book. We would also like to thank Eva Körner for developing
the visual concept of the fact sheets.
Special thanks go to the undergraduate students who supported us: Marie-Luise
Domke, who conducted the interviews for the best practice examples and support-
ed the content-related investigation and formatting, Anton Doqi, who designed the
layout of the fact sheets as well as many of the figures and sketches*, and Jona-
than Creed and Daniel Ledda for proofreading the book.
This book project would not have been possible without the financial support
of the Technical University of Munich. Therefore, we would like to thank the
President, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang A. Herrmann and all members of the
TUM Leonardo Da Vinci Centre for sponsoring our work.
For the excellent collaboration and support, we would also like to thank the
publishing house, particularly Thomas Lehnert, Ulrike Butz and Peter Sollfrank.
With this book, we hope to contribute to the systematic and methodological ap-
plication of bio-inspired design in teaching and practice. The potential of bio-
inspired design for technical innovation is enormous and still largely unexplored.
We hope that this book supports engineers, biologists, and interdisciplinary col-
laborations in changing this.
Munich, May 2018,
Udo Lindemann and Helena Hashemi Farzaneh
*Figures or Sketches designed by Anton Doqi:
Figure 1-4, Figure 1-5, Figure 2-1, Figure 2-2, Figure 2-3, Figure 2-7, Figure
2-10, Figure 2-11, Figure 2-12, Figure 3-2, Figure 3-4, Figure 3-5, Figure 3-6,
Figure 3-7, Figure 3-8, Figure 3-9, Figure 3-10, Figure 4-7, Figure 4-8, Figure
4-9, Figure 4-10, Figure 4-11, Figure 4-13, Figure 5-8, Figure 6-6
Moreover, Anton designed all Figures and Sketches on the fact sheets.
Contents
Preface ................................................................................................................... V
Contents .............................................................................................................. VII
1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Why this Book? – 10 Amazing Aspects of Bio-inspired Design ............. 2
1.2 How to Use this Book .............................................................................. 6
1.2.1 Bio-inspired Design Activities ........................................................ 7
1.2.2 Bio-inspired Design Approaches ..................................................... 8
1.2.3 Bio-inspired Design Scenarios ...................................................... 10
1.3 Guiding Example: Frog Adhesion and Application Ideas ..................... 11
1.3.1 Sample Biological System: Tree and Torrent Frogs’ Toe Pads ..... 12
1.3.2 Sample Technical Systems ............................................................ 17
2 Planning of a Bio-inspired Design Project .............................................. 19
2.1 Technical Product Development Procedures ......................................... 19
2.1.1 Prescriptive vs Descriptive ............................................................ 19
2.1.2 Stages Covered by the Process ...................................................... 22
2.1.3 Sequence of the Product Development Stages and Activities ....... 24
2.2 Biological Research Procedures ............................................................ 27
2.2.1 Developing Hypotheses ................................................................. 30
2.2.2 Data Collection .............................................................................. 31
2.3 Comparing Procedures of the Biological and Technical Domain .......... 32
2.4 Bio-inspired Design Procedures ............................................................ 33
2.4.1 Technology Pull Procedure............................................................ 35
2.4.2 Biology Push Procedure ................................................................ 38
2.4.3 Procedure for Collaborative Research Projects ............................. 41
2.4.4 TRIZ-based Procedure ................................................................... 44
2.4.5 Procedure for Architecture and Industrial Design ......................... 50
3 Abstraction ................................................................................................. 53
3.1 Abstraction in Technical Product Development .................................... 55
3.1.1 Flow-oriented Modeling ................................................................ 59
3.1.2 TRIZ Object Modeling .................................................................. 60
3.2 Abstraction in Biology........................................................................... 62
3.2.1 Model Organisms .......................................................................... 63
3.2.2 Computational Models .................................................................. 64
3.3 Comparing Abstraction in the Biological and Technical Domain ......... 67
3.4 Abstraction Methods for Bio-inspired Design ....................................... 70
3.4.1 Biocards ......................................................................................... 71
3.4.2 SBF Modeling ............................................................................... 72
VIII Contents
3.4.3 SAPPhIRE ..................................................................................... 76
3.4.4 KoMBi ........................................................................................... 78
4 Search ......................................................................................................... 81
4.1 General Perspective on Search .............................................................. 81
4.2 Search in Technical Product Development ............................................ 85
4.2.1 Intuitive or Creativity Methods ..................................................... 87
4.2.2 Discursive or Structured Methods ................................................. 89
4.3 Where to Search in Bio-inspired Design ............................................... 91
4.3.1 Research Publications .................................................................... 96
4.3.2 Technical Patents ........................................................................... 98
4.3.3 Catalogs/Databases of Biological Principles ................................. 99
4.3.4 Bio-inspired Open Innovation: KoMBi Mapping ........................ 103
4.4 How to Search in Bio-inspired Design ................................................ 104
4.4.1 Translation Technical/Biological Domain ................................... 108
4.4.2 Variation of Search Terms ........................................................... 111
4.4.3 BIOscrabble ................................................................................. 112
5 Analysis and Comparison ....................................................................... 115
5.1 Analysis of Technical Systems ............................................................ 115
5.1.1 Virtual Analysis ........................................................................... 117
5.1.2 Physical Analysis......................................................................... 120
5.2 Analysis of Biological Systems ........................................................... 122
5.2.1 Virtual analysis ............................................................................ 123
5.2.2 Physical Analysis......................................................................... 124
5.3 Comparing Technical and Biological Analysis Methods .................... 127
5.4 Methods for Analysis and Comparison in Bio-inspired Design .......... 130
5.4.1 Material Analysis......................................................................... 131
5.4.2 Analysis of Scaling Effects.......................................................... 133
5.4.3 Decision Model Similarity........................................................... 134
5.4.4 Four Box Method ........................................................................ 136
5.4.5 Expert-Novice-Layperson Dialog ................................................ 137
6 Transfer of Analogies .............................................................................. 141
6.1 General Perspective on Analogical Transfer ....................................... 141
6.2 Analogical Transfer in Technical Product Development..................... 144
6.3 Methods for the Transfer of Bio-inspired Analogies ........................... 148
6.3.1 Analogy Model ............................................................................ 152
6.3.2 Causal Relation Template ............................................................ 154
6.3.3 Decision Model Abstraction Level .............................................. 155
6.3.4 Formulation of Different Analogy Types .................................... 157
6.3.5 BioId ............................................................................................ 162
6.3.6 Synectics ...................................................................................... 163
Contents IX
7 Fact sheets ................................................................................................ 167
Technology Pull Procedure ............................................................................ 169
Biology Push Procedure ................................................................................. 171
Procedure for Collaborative Research Projects.............................................. 173
TRIZ-based Procedure ................................................................................... 175
Procedure for Architecture and Industrial Design ......................................... 177
Biocards ......................................................................................................... 179
SBF Modeling ................................................................................................ 181
SAPPhIRE ..................................................................................................... 183
KoMBi ........................................................................................................... 185
Research Publications .................................................................................... 187
Technical Patents ........................................................................................... 189
Catalogs/Databases of Biological Principles ................................................. 191
Bio-inspired Open Innovation: KoMBi ......................................................... 193
Translation Technical/Biological Domain ..................................................... 195
Variation of Search Terms ............................................................................. 197
BIOscrabble ................................................................................................... 199
Material Analysis ........................................................................................... 201
Analysis of Scaling Effects ............................................................................ 203
Decision Model Similarity ............................................................................. 205
Four Box Method ........................................................................................... 207
Expert-Novice-Layperson Dialog .................................................................. 209
Analogy Model .............................................................................................. 211
Causal Relation Template .............................................................................. 213
Decision Model Abstraction Level ................................................................ 215
Formulation of Different Analogy Types ...................................................... 217
BioId ..................................................................................................... 219
Synectics ..................................................................................................... 221
8 References ................................................................................................ 223
9 Appendix .................................................................................................. 239
9.1 Collections of Biological Inspirations ................................................. 240
9.2 Catalogs/Databases of Biological Principles (Examples) .................... 248
9.3 Translation Technical/Biological Domain ........................................... 253
10 Index ......................................................................................................... 261
X Contents
Best Practice Examples
FlexShapeGripper – a Biology Push Development Project ................... 40
InspiRat – Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Long-term Research
Project ................................................................................................................. 43
Prosthetic Hands Inspired by Abstracted Hydraulics of
Spider Legs ........................................................................................................ 54
The Lotus Effect – How the Right Model Paved the Way for
Success ............................................................................................................... 69
Mountain Bike BIONICON rEVO – Solutions through Observation in
Nature .................................................................................................................. 95
Bio-inspired Bone Punch – Searching for Partial Functions ............. 107
Vault-structured Materials – Looking beyond the Obvious................ 129
From Biopolymer Fibers to Filter Systems –Collaborative Analysis
with Research and Industry Partners ........................................................ 140
Stair-climbing Wheelchair – Analogical Transfer Inspired by Multiple
Biological Species .......................................................................................... 151
Hexal LED Trunking System – Application of Vault Structures in
Multiple Technical Applications ................................................................. 161
