IB 199 BioInspiration Spring 2011

Well this is the end of the semester and I thought that its time to wrap up the class so I am posting an article that I think wraps up this term very nicely. Enjoy.

Efficient flying and swimming patterns of many organisms are the result of spiralic flows. After observing this fact, this company has produced a spiral shaped rotor. This technology would allow for devices to be smaller, is more energy efficient than current rotors, and is also significantly quieter, compared to current technology such as jet engine turbines which are extremely noisy. This technology also has many applications, as there are many needs for fans, impellers, and pumps in transportation, industries, and residences.

I found an amazing smart bird robot. It completely and successfully mimic the way birds fly.

This article is about artificial ant robots that were programmed to find disks that represented food and resources and push the disks to a designated area. The robots also went through artificial natural selection and gene flow. The experiment showed that after about 150 generations, the robots evolved to help each other push the large disks. This evolved altruism was predicted by biologist W.D. Hamilton in 1964 when he was trying to explain why organisms evolve to share time and resources. This could be a very interesting fact to use for future robots, because the robots could work together on a project without human direction.

This article is a very interesting example of biomimicry. It reminds me a lot of how we mimic butterfly wings to produce iridescence. This article talks about how physicist Hui Cao from Yale was inspired by birghtly colored bird feathers to create a new type of laser. Just like butterfly wings, the color on the birds' feathers are the result of texture on a nano scale. These brightly colored birds have organized air pockets that reflect light in a certain way. Cao used this to make air pockets in a thin sheet of gallium arsenide. This proved to be effective in creating a cheap, efficient laser light. While he does not have any applications for this yet, it is a great use of nature to start to solve current problems with technology.

South American electric knifefish are a leading model system within neurobiology. Recent efforts have focused on understanding how they move, and how that relates to how their brain controls movement. Knifefish swim by means of an undulatory fin that runs most of the length of their body, affixed to the belly. Using this fin enables the fish to stay relatively straightforward, making them different from sharks in this regard. The results of this experiment show that there is an optimal operational region in the fin's kinematic parameter space, when the fin is used in conjunction with a robot.

Article commemorating the 1000 day since a computer chip was implanted in a womens brain to help her communicate with the outside world, amazing !

The "Education" in Scientific American has a lot of experiments that people can do at home with simple materials. The link I share is the science behind a magic show I've seen before. After the practice, they have some questions like "What is the slowest you can pull the loop away and still have the coin fall into the container? What happens when you use a bigger or smaller paper loop?"

The title of this article is pretty self-explanatory, although I was really suprised to find all of the basic ideas to be quite interesting and inspirational. The direct method that is ised in this article is very similar to what we discussed in the last "lecture" of class. This is an article that I will definitely be looking back on to help get the "bioinspired juices flowing" for any future ideas that I may have. I wish that I would have found this article earlier because it might have helped me with some of our earlier assignments.

This a great talk on Solar Energy and a new innovative way to improve on our current notion of solar energy. According to Bill Gross, current solar panels that rely on silicon and other materials are still not cost effective enough to be practical. I most cases, it takes more energy to make a solar cell, than it will give out in its entire life. This led to the challenge of finding other ways of making cost-effective solar energy for use in our society. The talk covers Gross's solution of collecting the sun using reflectors to concentrate the energy to a small converter, how to design these reflectors, and what converter would be used to turn this solar energy into usable energy. In order to solve the problem of finding the most effective way of capturing/reflecting the rays of the Sun Gross used Genetic Algorithms. The use of Genetic Algorithms is a powerful way of solving intractable problems using "natural selection". You take a problem that you can't solve with a pure mathematical answer, you build an evolutionary system to try multiple tries at guessing, you add sex - where you take half of one solution and half of another and then make new mutations - and you use natural selection to kill off not as good solutions. This process ultimately led them to some great ideas for reflectors. In order to capture this heat from the solar rays Gross utilizes an advanced Sterling Engine mechanism. In summary, I highly suggest that everyone watch this video and see these alternative methods of capturing and converting solar energy.

This is an article on the loosejaw dragonfish, which senses infrared light using pigments from the bacteria it eats. Scientists are brainstorming numerous applications for this property, including tumor growth monitoring, bioluminescent energy techniques, and plastics testing.

Helps how to put the nano meter in context and further into the nano world

This study has shown that some primates are possible more self-aware than we are giving them credit for. We knew from before they were able to distinguish themselves in a mirror; by putting paint on them and upon seeing themselves in a mirror attempting to whip it off. However now using different forms of testing we can see that they are very accurate in distinguishing their own actions from what was not their actions. Using a track-pad, a screen and rewards the primates were shown to have around 90% accuracy distinguishing their actions. Possibly understanding other species of self-awareness will help make our robots truly one day self-autonomous, if we so chose.

Just some basic facts of science that are pretty intriguing

This robot uses rhythmic neural activity to make the spine of the robot oscillate like a salamander. The salamander also serves as an effective model for an amphibious robot. The swaying motion helps for both terrestrial and aquatic locomotion.

Hey guys! I found this site and it has several links to some biomimetics and in depth explanations of their inspiration and function. Hope you enjoy!

CANNOT believe they have a stat about these!

Didn't stop there found articles about the featured robots: Salamander: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11338-salamander-robot-uses-spinal-cord-to-move.html Water-Strider: http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu/projects/waterstrider/ M-tran: http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/26/m-tran-self-reconfigurable-modular-robot/ (personal favorite, make sure to check out the video!)

I found a sandy robot inspired by spiders and crabs in IEEE. Their ideas are practical and very likely to be applied in future.