20 most recent innovations in biomimetics

Beaver-inspired Wetsuits Keep Surfers Warm

Fri, 07 Oct 2016 00:00:00 Z

Beavers and sea otters lack the thick layer of blubber that insulates walruses and whales. And yet these small, semiaquatic mammals can keep warm and even dry while diving, by trapping warm pockets of air in dense layers of fur.

Inspired by these fuzzy swimmers, MIT engineers have now fabricated fur-like, rubbery pelts and used them to identify a mechanism by which air is trapped between individual hairs when the pelts are plunged into liquid.

Beetle Inspired Coating Stops Frost

Tue, 02 Feb 2016 00:00:00 Z

An advanced coating, inspired by a beetle’s shell, could be used to prevent frost forming on components including aircraft parts and windscreens a team of US researchers has claimed.

The technology, which has been developed at Virginia Tech, uses photolithography to create chemical micropatterns to control the growth of frost caused by condensation.

According to a paper in the online journal Scientific Reports, the technique takes its inspiration from the Namib Desert Beetle, which has a water repellent surface studded with bumps that attract water. These bumps enable it to collect airborne water, which then flows down water-repellant channels towards the insect’s mouth.

Jonathan Boreyko, an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics in the Virginia Tech College of Engineering said that by mimicking this ability to control where dew-drops grow it’s is possible to create frost-proof surfaces.

The journey of frost across a surface begins with a single, frozen dewdrop, the researchers said.

“The twist is how ice bridges grow,” Boreyko said. “Ice harvests water from dew drops and this causes ice bridges to propagate frost across the droplets on the surface. Only a single droplet has to freeze to get this chain reaction started.”

By controlling spacing of the condensation, the researchers were able to control the speed frost grows across surfaces, or completely prevent frost.

“We made a single dry zone around a piece of ice,” Boreyko said. “Dew drops preferentially grow on the array of hydrophilic dots. When the dots are spaced far enough apart and one of the drops freezes into ice, the ice is no longer able to spread frost to the neighboring drops because they are too far away. Instead, the drops actually evaporate completely, creating a dry zone around the ice.”

Creating frost-free zones on larger surfaces could have a variety of applications – including on wind turbines or airplane wings, where a huge amount of energy I currently used up on frost reduction.

This isn’t the first time that engineers have been inspired by the beetle’s elegant water gathering technique. Back in 2012, US start-up NBD Nano announced that it had copied the insect’s ability to develop a self-filling water bottle.

Industrial Pump Inspired By Bird Wings

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 00:00:00 Z

Birds are unwitting masters of fluid dynamics, they manipulate airflow each time they flap their wings, pushing air in one direction and moving themselves in another. Two New York University researchers have taken inspiration from avian locomotion strategies and created a pump that moves fluid using vibration instead of a rotor. When a fluid is squeezed and expanded repeatedly, the asymmetric boundary forces the fluid to move in one direction.

The pump could be particularly useful in industrial situations where machinery is vibrating excessively and therefore operating inefficiently. Because it is powered by vibration, it could capture some of the wasted mechanical energy and instead use it for a productive task like circulating coolant. It would also dampen the noise that vibrating machinery tends to emit.

Next Generation Armor Inspired By Animal Scales

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 00:00:00 Z

We've seen scientists examine everything from the structure of sea sponges to the clubbing ability of mantis shrimps in the search for next generation lightweight armor systems. Researchers at Northeastern University’s College of Engineering believe that fish scales could hold the key to creating armor that's both impervious and lightweight. They eventually aim to combine the properties of fish, snake and butterfly scales into a single protective armor system.

Fish scales have been studied extensively because of their ability to protect the body while still allowing movement. However most of these studies have focused on the material of the scales and how their plasticity or elasticity alters their protective qualities. Ranajay Ghosh, an associate research scientist, and his colleagues explored a different track. They took a soft substrate and examined how adding scales of a certain size, laid out geometrically, would affect its properties.

"We found that as long as the scale material is at least an order of magnitude stiffer than the skin material, perceptible benefits can begin to accrue," Ghosh told Gizmag.

Adding 3D-printed scales to the soft substrate caused the material to stiffen up and become less penetrable. Combining geometry with scale interaction allowed the team to achieve a "structural stiffening" which is believed to be key. Simple scales used in specific arrangements that stiffen up could help to create better armor, the researchers say, given how nature seems to achieve multiple functions quite well without using the kind of high-strength materials that humans do.

"Many scales are optimized for different and often distinct purposes – protection (e.g. some fishes), mobility (snakes) or coloration (butterfly) depending on maximizing the probability of survival and replication," Ghosh tells us. "In principle, we can have a protective system which combines the protective functions of a fish scale with the mobility advantage of snake scale with the optical properties of butterfly scales."

The team aims to tweak various materials and use both 3D printing and nano-fabrication to combine these different properties into one. Challenges include fabricating and testing scales and modifying them to withstand the high energies and temperatures associated with impacts. Going forward the team hopes to gain more insights into the fundamental principles that combine geometry with scale interaction to help design better armor.

"Modern armor would be more successful if we have an easier handle on different properties from as few design variables as possible,", says Ghosh. "This reduction is possible when we discover a deeper underlying principle which makes natural dermal scale modifications so widespread and ancient."

Spider-Inspired Discs Could Be The New Glue

Thu, 22 May 2014 00:00:00 Z

Researchers from the University of Akron have recently created their own version of the "attachment discs" that spiders use to secure their silk fibers to surfaces, when building webs. These man-made discs could conceivably prove superior to conventional glues as a form of adhesive.

When spiders want to join a silk fiber to a surface, they don't simply press the end of that one fiber to the surface and hope that it holds. Instead, they pin it down by depositing an array of finer fibers that criss-cross over top of it – sort of like the staked-down ropes that the Lilliputians used to hold down Gulliver, in Gulliver's Travels. That jumble of fibers is known as a pyriform attachment disc.

Led by Prof. Ali Dhinojwala, the U Akron team created artificial versions of these discs, using electrospun polyurethane fibers. These were used to effectively hold underlying nylon threads to surfaces.

It is now hoped that such discs could one day serve as a type of inexpensive biomedical adhesive, perhaps being used to bind fractures or bond ligaments onto bone. They might also simply become a stronger alternative to conventional glue and tape.

'RoboClam' Could Anchor Submarines

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:00:00 Z

A new burrowing robot for anchoring miniature submarines has been developed - inspired by the humble razor clam. "RoboClam" could be used to lay undersea cables, and potentially even destroy mines, its inventors say.

The device mimics the digging action used by razor clams to turn solid soil into liquid "quicksand", helping them slide through. They set out to design a new low-power, light-weight anchor for autonomous underwater vehicles.

The MIT researchers say their robot digs as fast as a razor clam. Compared to existing anchor technology "the razor clam is about 10 times more efficient," Dr Nordstrom told BBC News. To dig for half a kilometre, it would only use the energy in an AA battery.

To find out the razor clam's secret, they studied its digging action and modelled it mechanically. The repeated open-shut of the clam's valves turned the hard-packed soil around it into quicksand. "The clam's trick is to move its shells in such a way as to liquefy the soil around its body, reducing the drag acting upon it," said Amos Winter, of MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering. "Pushing through sand costs a lot of energy. But if the sand is excited, it's actually very easy. That's the trick," added Dr Nordstrom.

The first "RoboClam" can only reach 20cm, and requires a significant rig of machinery to propel it. But having demonstrated the principle, the team now aims to develop a larger, self-contained unit, that can burrow more than 10 metres.This could be used to anchor larger vessels, and may have military applications - such as detonating mines, the researchers suggest.

Bionic Kangaroo

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 00:00:00 Z

Yesterday, Festo unveiled a bird-inspired wind turbine, but today, the company has unveiled a new robotic creation that's a little more recognizable. The world may not have a huge need for a bionic kangaroo but emulating the marsupial could result in robots with remarkably long endurance.

Kangaroos are able to hop around for what seems like ages because they use the tendons in their legs like springs to capture and re-use energy. And Festo has managed to successfully emulate that behavior in its BionicKangaroo.

A small battery-powered internal air compressor generates the pressure needed to launch the BionicKangaroo into a foot-and-half high jump. And upon landing, an actual spring (in lieu of a tendon) compresses to recapture some of the energy generated for the jump. It doesn't mean the kangaroo can hop around forever, but it does allow the robot to maximize the life of its rechargeable batteries.

Given how adept real kangaroos are at navigating Australia's rugged terrain, the technologies developed by the BionicKangaroo could be applied to ground-based autonomous vehicles which are less likely to get stuck without wheels. And you can just imagine how awesome robotic kangaroo boxing might be one day.

Bird-Inspired Wind Turbine

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 00:00:00 Z

Back in 2011, Festo created a natural-flight mimicking bionic seagull with flapping wings dubbed SmartBird. The company is now looking to apply similar principles in order to convert wind power into electricity with its DualWingGenerator system.

The DualWingGenerator system is comprised of a vertical column supporting a bottom and top pair of "wings" that measure 250 cm (98.4 in) across. The pairs are fitted to separate sliders and then driven up and down as the air flows across the surfaces.

As the wind blows, the wings move in opposing directions, the bottom wings moving upwards as the top move downwards, or vice versa. This motion is then converted into rotary movement inside the column using two timing belts and two free wheels. The rotary force is then transferred to an electricity generator to complete the kinetic to electricity power transformation.

Festo tested the effectiveness of the DualWingGenerator alongside two similar-sized conventional wind turbines. The team says that the system achieved "remarkable outputs compared to small wind power stations," observing a 45 percent fluid-mechanical effectiveness level when used in wind speeds between 4 and 8 meters per second (with the maximum, or Betz' limit being 59.3 percent). The system also demonstrated a marginally higher energy output when used at similarly low wind speeds.

While the output of the DualWingGenerator, like all wind turbines, is related to the strength of the wind, Festo aims to lessen its dependence on the elements with what it describes as intelligent control technology.

This technology is designed to enable the system to self-optimize and adapt to different wind conditions. It involves two servomotors and a sensor built into the central column to dictate the angle, amplitude and frequency of the flapping.

While there is no indication of when or if the system might reach the marketplace, Festo is continuing to develop the technology and cites potential applications such as small scale installations on buildings or for generating compressed air or a water.

Flexible Armadillo-Inspired Armor

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 00:00:00 Z

Animals like crocodiles and armadillos have natural armor that’s basically a bunch of hard plates embedded in soft tissues. A team of mechanical engineers led by McGill University associate professor Francois Barthelat developed a new material that mimics this protection.

In the lab they used a laser to carve a glass plate into hexagonal segments, which was then attached to a soft rubber substrate with silicone glue. The engineers tested their flexible armor by trying to puncture it with a sharp steel needle. Compared to unsegmented glass, the armor displayed an increase in puncture resistance of up to 70 percent.

“What was the most surprising is that the resistance to puncture of our bio-inspired segmented armor was greater than the same system without the segments,” Barthelat told me. “ suggests that this design not only provides flexibility, but also improves protection.”

The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics (abstract), think the material could have applications in protective coatings, flexible electronics and personal armor.

Although they used glass in the lab because it made fabrication easier, Barthelat said the team is exploring better materials to use in the armor, such as advanced ceramics. But that’s not for a little while, crocodiles.

Underwater Crabster like Robot

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:00:00 Z

The world’s largest and deepest underwater-walking robot, the 1,400-pound Crabster CR200, was designed to scuttle along the seafloor like a monstrous crustacean. Its possible vocations include scientific explorer, commercial surveyor, and treasure hunter. In fast currents too dangerous for scuba divers, it steadies itself on six legs by putting its head down, raising its rear, and facing the flow head-on. It has 11 cameras, including an acoustic one to see through cloudy, turbulent waters. Engineers at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) held Crabster’s first underwater trial last summer. This spring, they plan to test it at maximum depth (656 feet) and then head to the Yellow Sea to help archaeologists excavate 12th-century shipwrecks.

Material That Mimics Structure Of Bone

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 00:00:00 Z

Scientists at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) in Germany have created a lightweight but very strong material inspired by the intricate microscopic architecture of living tissue – our own bones. The research could pave the way for future super-light materials that could be used in microfluidics devices or to make lighter (and thus cheaper) spacecraft.

Industrial materials like steel are often solid and thus very dense and heavy – which is a drawback if you’re trying to make something strong but light (like a plane). Even though experts have managed to make artificial ‘cellular’ materials like aluminum foam, which is full of air pockets and thus much lighter than a solid hunk of metal, there’s a trade-off – the porous metal is much weaker than solid metal would be. It’s not easy to engineer strong materials less dense than water (which is about 1,000 kilograms per cubic meter).

Wood and bone don’t seem to have this problem. These living tissues, natural cellular materials, are porous but still very strong – and it’s because of how the air pockets are arranged. In metal foam, the air bubbles are random, and so is the structure. But in wood and bone, there’s a complex architectural pattern to the bits of bone crisscrossing through all those air pockets that are designed to bear loads.

Wood and bone have another advantage. Their cellular architecture starts on very tiny, microscopic scales, which allows them to take advantage of the size effect—the smaller your building material, the stronger it gets.

So the researchers used a 3D laser lithography machine – basically a very fancy 3D printer – to build very tiny microstructures out of a ceramic-polymer composite. They made several different designs, from cubic grids with diagonal supports to hexagonal honeycomb-like structures.

These light building materials were remarkably tough – they exceeded the strength to weight ratio of all engineering materials with a density less than that of water, the researchers said.

Wall-Climbing, Gecko Robot

Fri, 03 Jan 2014 00:00:00 Z

A wall-crawling robot inspired by the gecko has taken a small but important step towards a future in space, scientists said on Thursday. The tiny legged prototype could be the forerunner of automatons that crawl along the hulls of spacecraft, cleaning and maintaining them, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

Its footpads are covered with dry microfibers modeled on the toe hair of the gecko, which is celebrated for its ability to scuttle up windows and along walls yet not leave a trace. The lizard does the trick through millions of ultra-fine hairs called setae, which interact with the climbing surface to create a molecular attraction known as the van der Waals force.

Researchers at Canada's Simon Fraser University first built a 240-gram (eight-ounce) tank-like gecko-bot, using tracks with microfiber treads. They then developed this into a six-legged climbing robot, nicknamed Abigaille.

The "dry adhesive" that helps Abigaille climb walls has now been put through its paces at a materials-testing lab at ESA's European Space and Technology Center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Replicating the vacuum and temperatures of space, but not the zero gravity, the tests found that the adhesive worked like a charm, the agency said.

Self-Healing Gel Can Repair Large Patches

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 00:00:00 Z

Inspired by the regenerative abilities of salamanders, researchers have created a design for a synthetic gel able to self-repair large sections of material.

Although researchers have created materials able to repair small cuts, the new material's design is able to handle larger tears as well. To accomplish this goal, the team designed a material consisting of a gel-embedded solution. The gel itself contains nanorods able to detect a cut and trigger the material to expand and fill the gap.

The material could be used to create self-healing paint, body armor or even furniture.

"Most Waterproof Material Ever" Is Inspired By Nature

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 Z

A team at MIT has what it says is the most waterproof material ever, taking inspiration from the plant and insect world. The scientist heading up the research, Professor Kripa Varanasi--he brought us LiquiGlide, squeezing every last drop out of our ketchup bottles last year--says this new super-hydrophobic surface could be used in next-generational waterproof clothing, and revolutionize the energy and travel industries. Airplane engines, for example, could use the material to fly planes through extremely cold conditions.

Tiny ridges similar to those found on both nasturtium leaves and the wings of the Morpho butterfly were added to a silicon surface, which made the water droplets bounce off up to 40% faster than existing waterproof substances. The more intersecting ridges you have, the more the droplets of water break up. Smaller droplets mean less water on the surface, making it more waterproof. "I'm looking forward to working with the fabrics industry to develop new clothing that stays dry longer," said Professor Varanasi.

Flying Jellyfish-Like Machine

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:00:00 Z

Many approaches to building small aerial robots try to mimic the flight of insects such as fruit flies. The challenge in that, explained Leif Ristroph of New York University, is that the flapping wing of a fly is inherently unstable. To stay in flight and to maneuver, a fly must constantly monitor its environment to sense every gust of wind or approaching predator, adjusting its flying motion to respond within fractions of a second. To recreate that sort of complex control in a mechanical device – and to squeeze it into a small robotic frame – is extremely difficult, Ristroph said.

After some tinkering, he devised a new way of flapping-wing flight that doesn't need any sort of control or feedback system to be stable, and is akin to the swimming motions of jellyfish. The prototype device, weighing just two grams and spanning eight centimeters in width, flies by flapping four wings that are arranged like petals on a flower. While the up-and-down motion of the wings resembles a pulsating jelly,, the device's ultimate fluttering flight may be more similar to that of a moth. The vehicle can hover, ascend, and fly in a particular direction.

Bomb-Detecting Radar Method Inspired By Dolphins

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:00:00 Z

Researchers have discovered a new radar technique that could be used to find an improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in a pile of trash on the road, and the finding was inspired from an unlikely source: dolphins. The technology could also be used to find buried earthquake victims, animals marked with tags, or tiny surveillance devices hidden in walls.

The researchers call the technique twin inverted pulse radar (TWIPR), and as with the sonar method it sends two identical electromagnetic waves at inverted phases — meaning when one wave crests the other troughs. It's able to determine semiconductors from other objects by the way each scatters the waves when they make contact. In a paper describing their findings, the researchers say it can even distinguish between rusty metal and semiconductors. They also tested cell phones with or without an active SIM card, as well as one with the battery removed, and they concluded that their finding "suggest that there is a possibility that the differing operating states of a mobile phone can be distinguished using TWIPR."

This all makes the method appealing for finding explosive devices, and the cell phone tracking may allow first responders to find victims buried after a building collapse. But the researchers point out that a simple tag that can be made for less than one euro could be tuned for easy detection with TWIPR, making it a good fit for animal-tracking devices or as part of a kit worn by explorers.

Dragonfly-Inspired Turbine

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:00:00 Z

Renzo Piano has created a compact, yet super-efficient wind turbine that anyone can erect in their backyard. Called the “Dragonfly Invisible Wind Turbine” the two-blade design mimics the delicate dragonfly’s ability to float on the slightest of breezes. Based on the physics of dragonfly flight, Piano’s mini-turbine can harvest energy from winds that blow as slow as four miles an hour.

Most residential turbine designs are big, loud, and often have an adverse affect on property values. Commercial-size turbines produce a lot of power, but you can’t put them just anywhere, and they can have a deleterious impact on birds and other wildlife. Piano’s compact turbine design addresses nearly all of these problems without sacrificing efficiency.

Lens Changes Focus Like a Human Eye

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 00:00:00 Z

Ohio State University engineers took a crack at giving a camera lens some of the versatility of a human. They made a fluid-filled lens that can change its shape and focus, as well as alter the direction it focuses in. The technology could improve the capabilities of digital phone cameras and make cameras overall more reliable by eliminating the need for certain moving parts.

The lens is made from a flexible polymer. The design is like an insect’s compound eye, with a single large lens made up of several small dome-shaped pockets, each filled with fluid. Tiny channels supply the fluid to each of the pockets.

By pumping fluid in and out of the pockets, the engineers were able to alter the lens’ shape and focus. The point where the image is focused can also be moved off-center. In a lens made of glass or plastic the only way to change where the image is centered is to point the lens in a different direction.

This method of focusing is a lot like what human eyes do. In humans, the muscles in the eye squeeze the lens or stretch it a bit to change the focal point of the image. When you look at something far off, for instance, the lens in your eye becomes slightly flatter.

Another advantage of the design is a wide angle of view. This is where the designers took a cue from insects’ compound eyes. The reason flies can see behind them is that their eyes are made of thousands of tiny facets, each pointed in a different direction. The down side (for the fly) is that each of those tiny facets can’t focus very well. The artificial lens solves that problem by adjusting the fluid-filled lenses.

View related patent

Worm-inspired medical adhesive

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

In their quest to create an adhesive that more reliably holds skin grafts in place, scientists have taken inspiration from a parasitic worm known as the pomphorhynchus laevis. To feed off of its host (fresh fish), this worm latches onto the intestinal wall of its host by digging its needle-like head in and then swelling up to secure itself. A research team at Brigham and Women's Hospital applied similar thinking to a new adhesive patch that latches onto human tissue by way of dozens of microneedles.

The resulting bond is over three times as strong as staples conventionally used in skin graft procedures according to Dr. Seung Yun Yang. Lead researcher Jeffrey Karp explains the adhesion process further, saying "the unique design allows the needles to stick to soft tissues with minimal damage to the tissues. Moreover, when it comes time to remove the adhesive, compared to staples, there is less trauma inflicted to the tissue, blood and nerves, as well as a reduced risk of infection." Infection is another potential danger of the staples and stutures that commonly go hand-in-hand with skin grafts. The tip on each needle is tiny in its dry state, but swells when water is added to form the ultra-tight bond.

A lab-grown kidney

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 Z

Scientists have implanted a laboratory-grown kidney into a rat for the first time, a medical milestone that they hope will soon lead to similar solutions for human beings needing full organ transplants. "It's the first one ever that's been implanted into an animal," said Harald Ott, MD and PhD at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine and the lead researcher behind the project, to The Verge.

"The first one ever that's been implanted into an animal."

Specifically, Ott and his team managed to grow whole new kidneys in several days outside of the animals' bodies in "bioreactors," chambers full of oxygen and nutrients, and then implant them into several rat test animals that were suffering from kidney failure. These bioengineered kidneys were able to link up to the rats' circulatory system without rejection, produced urine just like real kidneys, and prolonged the rat subjects' lives. "Based on this inital proof of principle, we hope that bioengineered kidneys will someday be able to fully replace kidney function just as donor kidneys do," Ott said in a statement.

To be clear, Ott and his team still relied on donor organs for their work, but not in the way you might think. The researchers took several nonfunctioning kidneys from other, dead rats and stripped them of most of their tissue and cells using a soapy, liquid detergent solution. What was left behind was a scaffold made up of collagen — essentially the 3D-outline of a kidney — which the researchers then took and re-"seeded" with kidney cells from newborn rats and blood cells from humans. Previous research by other teams has also produced kidney scaffolds, but not gone the extra mile of re-seeding them and implanting them successfully into living animals. To re-attach the cells to the empty kidney scaffold in this case, the researchers used a pressurized solution. Finally, when all was said and done, they were able to watch the kidneys regrow into new, functional kidneys that secreted urine.

The next step is to repeat the experiment with larger animals and using the cells of the actual implant recipient, eventually working the way up to human beings needing organ transplants. Ott and his colleagues have already managed to strip the cells of larger animals — pigs and human kidneys — using the same technique. "In an ideal world, such grafts could be produced 'on demand' from a patient's own cells, helping us overcome both the organ shortage and the need for chronic immunosuppression," Ott said in a statement. "We're now investigating methods of deriving the necessary cell types from patient-derived cells and refining the cell-seeding and organ culture methods to handle human-sized organs." The goal is to be able to help reduce the shortfall of donor organs for the over 75,000 Americans with kidney failure still awaiting transplant.

"We're now investigating methods [...] to handle human-sized organs."

So far, the researchers have already learned a number of important procedures from their experiments on rats. One of those was just how much pressure to apply to re-seed the kidneys with new cells. Ott said that his team came to this via trial and error. "We had quite a few kidneys blow up in a jar," he explained in a Nature video on the research. The full results of the work, including the successfully-grown kidneys, are described in depth in a paper published in the journal Nature Medicine this week.