| Topic: | Bioinspiration – The Time is Now |
|---|---|
| Speaker: | Prof Rolf Mueller Director, BIST Center; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech |
| Date: | Monday, 11 November 2019 |
| Time: | 3.00pm to 4.00pm |
| Venue: | Room EA-06-06 (Block EA, Level 6) (map of NUS can be found at http://map.nus.edu.sg/) |
| Host: | Asst Prof Adrian Koh |
Abstract
The field of bioinspiration, i.e., looking to biological model systems as a source for novel engineering solutions, has experienced an exponential growth over the last 20 years. The root causes behind this growth are likely be found in transformations within engineering and the life sciences that have opened up a new intersection between these two fields. Economic studies for the US have predicted that bioinspiration could result in 300 billion dollars of direct economic output and an additional 50 billion gained due to reduced resource depletion and pollution by 2025. Biological systems still outperform their engineered peers due to four key capabilities: (i) an efficient embedding into the physical world, (ii) leveraging synergies at the system integration level, (iii) complex dynamic solutions, and (iv) adapting “winning principles” to a diverse range of ecological niches. So far, bioinspired engineering has only been able to make use of a tiny portion of the world’s biodiversity. Bioinspired solutions have largely been gifts of serendipity and not the results of a systematic search. However, a current convergence in the development of scientific fields such as digitization of biological specimens, computational analysis of biological function, and the data sciences could have a transformative impact on bioinspiration. By including methods from these areas, bioinspiration could mature into a science discipline that has its own specific theory and methods. With these scientific fundamentals in place, the world’s biodiversity could gain an additional scientific and economic significance as a – complete sustainable – resource for engineering innovation.
About the Speaker
Rolf Mueller has studied various aspects of bat biosonar from the perspectives of biophysics and bioinspired engineering for almost 20 years and has (co)authored over 100 peer-reviewed, full-length publications on the topic. In particular, he has worked on statistical signal processing of sonar signals in complex, natural environments, biosonar beamforming, as well as biomimetic sonar systems. The focus areas of his current research are the extraction of adaptive design rules analysis from biodiversity, bioinspired dynamic principles for sensing, and the kinematics of bat flight. He is currently a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech and directs the Bioinspired Science and Technology (BIST) Center, an interdisciplinary effort with 42 faculty members from across the university. In his international efforts, he directs the Shandong University – Virginia Tech International Laboratory that is dedicated to the engineering analysis of biosonar, flight, and system integration in bats. His international work has been recognized by the Friendship Award of the People’s Republic of China (2010), the Dean’s Award of the VT College of Engineering (2011), and Virginia Tech’s Alumni Award for International Research (2016).