Trends in Biomimetics

Abstract

A precise determination of the subject area of this study is anything but trivial. We are working within a narrow understanding of biomimetics and thus concentrating on the research, development, and actors that make direct reference to terms such as biomimetics and bionics.This viewpoint is then complemented by examinatining broader fields of biomimetics research and development in which these terms do not appear at all or only rarely, but in which a clear, recognizable focus on the role model of nature predominates, or in which an effort is made to find solutions to technical problems – in the broadest sense – by learning from nature. This report concentrates initially on this first area of biomimetics in the narrower sense. In the third chapter, with a view to potential technologies, the scope of the investigation is widend to include more general approaches to learning from nature (biomimetics in a broader sense).