Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 20.6 (See color insert following page 302) The chain of evolution of our mimicking nature is drawn into
the artificial world that we create. (Top graphics is the courtesy of David Hanson and Human Emulation Robotics,
LLC. The bottom graphics is the modification that was made by Adi Marom, Research Artifacts Center Engineering,
The University of Tokyo, Japan. The robotic arm in this figure was made by G. Whiteley, Sheffield Hallam U., UK,
and photographed in the author's lab.)
We have learned to use various techniques of camouflage, shields and body armor as well as the
stings and barbed arrows and there should be many more ideas that we can mimic.
As we learn from nature we are becoming better able to implement the adapted inventions
into the world of artificial tools that we create and continue to improve. The cover page graphics
(see the top panel of Figure 20.6) shows an illustration of human learning to make tools by watching
nature. This idea can be turned into a vision for the future of the artificial world that we are
continuing to create and improve as illustrated at the bottom panel of Figure 20.6. In this figure, an
evolutionary chain of the inspiration of nature is drawn where technology that we learned from
nature is implemented into robot's end-effectors including robotic arms, manipulators, and other
biomimetic support fixtures.
For the question ''what else can we learn?'' it would be highly helpful to create a documented
database that would examine biology from an engineering point of view and offer possibly a
catalog of nature's inventions. This catalog needs to include the inventions that have already been
used and possibly even offer different ways of looking at nature's innovations to enrich other
fields that have not been benefited yet. This database can be documented in a format of webpages
with hyperlinks that crossrefer related information. An example of a tool for documenting the
database one can use the Wiki online database system (see for more information: http://wiki.org/
wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki).
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