INTEGRATING FUNCTION-BASED AND BIOMIMETIC DESIGN FOR AUTOMATIC CONCEPT GENERATION

This paper explores combining functional modeling and biomimetic design. Observed benefits of applying functional modeling to biomimetic design include a more complete, systematic modeling that reveals additional aspects of biological phenomena to be exploited. Incorporating biological phenomena into a function-based design repository requires that multiple facets of the potential solution be presented, including a natural-language description of the biological phenomenon, the strategy derived from the phenomenon, example implementation of the strategy in engineered solutions, and functional modeling of both biological and engineered systems. This paper will illustrate the functional modeling of a single biological phenomenon at multiple levels of biological organization (organism/organ and cellular/molecular), the use of multiple biological analogies present in a single phenomenon in different engineering problems, and how the combination of functional modeling and biomimetic design leads to more complete exploitation of biological phenomena, as well as more complete representation of stimulus when including biological phenomena in a design repository