Bionics
Using synergies to create successful innovations
Bionics unites the synergies of biology and technology under the motto, "Learning from nature". Nature has devised solutions to a wide range of problems which continue to pose major challenges for scientists and engineers today. In many areas, including composite materials, information and communication systems, and perceptory sensors, nature has developed its own approaches which may be transferable to current technological dilemmas. Today more than ever before, when we are reminded daily of the need for sustainable management of our precious resources in the face of escalating raw material and energy costs, it seems only logical to follow nature's lead. Nature achieves its targets with the minimum of energy, and returns waste directly to the natural cycle. Identifying these mechanisms and using them to devise fresh engineering approaches represents a major opportunity.
Unfortunately, the wide application of ideas from bionics has often failed in the past, due to the fact that scientific thinking can be rigidly discipline-based, and also due to the absence of an effective technology transfer between research and industrial application. However, like the aforementioned projects in mechatronics and IT, the interdisciplinary approach is capable of producing a brand new way of thinking.
As such, bionics is characterised by the interdisciplinary approach to solving application-related issues, and is far more complex than the mere replication of biological models.
