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　　Other examples of biomimetics abound: Autotype, a materials firm, has developed a plastic film based on the complex microstructures found in moth eyes, which have evolved to collect as much light as possible without reflection. When applied to the screen of a mobile phone, the film reduces reflections and improves readability, and improves battery life since there is less need to illuminate the screen. Researchers at the University of Florida, meanwhile, have devised a coating inspired by the rough, bristly skin of sharks. It can be applied to the hulls of ships and submarines to prevent algae and barnacles from attaching themselves. At Penn State University, engineers have designed aircraft wings that can change shape in different phases of flight, just as birds' wings do. And Dr Vincent has devised a smart fabric, inspired by the way in which pine cones open and close depending on the humidity, that could be used to make clothing that adjusts to changing body temperatures and keeps the wearer cool.

　　From hit-and-miss to point-and-click

　　Yet despite all these successes, biomimetics still depends far too heavily on serendipity, says Dr Vincent. He estimates that there is only a 10% overlap between biological and technological mechanisms used to solve particular problems. In other words, there is still an enormous number of potentially useful mechanisms that have yet to be exploited. The problem is that the engineers looking for solutions depend on biologists having already found them—and the two groups move in different circles and speak very different languages. A natural mechanism or property must first be discovered by biologists, described in technological terms, and then picked up by an engineer who recognises its potential.

　　This process is entirely the wrong way round, says Dr Vincent. “To be effective, biomimetics should be providing examples of suitable technologies from biology which fulfil the requirements of a particular engineering problem,” he explains. That is why he and his colleagues, with funding from Britain's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, have spent the past three years building a database of biological tricks which engineers will be able to access to find natural solutions to their design problems. A search of the database with the keyword “propulsion”, for example, produces a range of propulsion mechanisms used by jellyfish, frogs and crustaceans.

　　The database can also be queried using a technique developed in Russia, known as the theory of inventive problem solving, or TRIZ. In essence, this is a set of rules that breaks down a problem into smaller parts, and those parts into particular functions that must be performed by components of the solution. Usually these functions are compared against a database of engineering patents, but Dr Vincent's team have substituted their database of “biological patents” instead. These are not patents in the conventional sense, of course, since the information will be available for use by anyone. By calling biomimetic tricks “biological patents”, the researchers are just emphasising that nature is, in effect, the patent holder.

　　One way to use the system is to characterise an engineering problem in the form of a list of desirable features that the solution ought to have, and another list of undesirable features that it ought to avoid. The database is then searched for any biological patents that meet those criteria. So, for example, searching for a means of defying gravity might produce a number of possible solutions taken from different flying creatures but described in engineering terms. “If you want flight, you don't copy a bird, but you do copy the use of wings and aerofoils,” says Dr Vincent.

　　He hopes that the database will store more than just blueprints for biological mechanisms that can be replicated using technology. Biomimetics can help with software, as well as hardware, as the robolobster built by Dr Ayers demonstrates. Its physical design and control systems are both biologically inspired. Most current robots, in contrast, are deterministically programmed. When building a robot, the designers must anticipate every contingency of the robot's environment and tell it how to respond in each case. Animal models, however, provide a plethora of proven solutions to real-world problems that could be useful in all sorts of applications. “The set of behavioural acts that a lobster goes through when searching for food is exactly what one would want a robot to do to search for underwater mines,” says Dr Ayers. It took nature millions of years of trial and error to evolve these behaviours, he says, so it would be silly not to take advantage of them.

　　Although Dr Vincent's database will not be capable of providing such specific results as control algorithms, it could help to identify natural systems and behaviours that might be useful to engineers. But it is still early days. So far the database contains only 2,500 patents. To make it really useful, Dr Vincent wants to collect ten times as many, a task for which he intends to ask the online community for help. Building a repository of nature's cleverest designs, he hopes, will eventually make it easier and quicker for engineers to steal and reuse them.

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