Function-Based Biology Inspired Concept Generation

Abstract

Functional representation of a biological system as described in Section 4, results in a description of the biological system\u27s functionality at a specified biological category and scale. By viewing the biological system from an engineering perspective and breaking it down into manageable parts, a designer can identify parallels between the engineering domain and biology or find inspiration for the development of novel, engineering solutions. Functional decomposition works for identifying analogies between biological and engineering systems as it creates a common approach for system decomposition. Also, with biological systems, it tends to be impractical for a designer to randomly try to match comparable engineering components to each biological component, especially for those who are biology novices. Functional modeling holds the potential to provide a translator between these domains. Concept generation techniques with function-based biological models facilitate the processes by making the task both manageable and worthwhile as demonstrated by Section 5. When developing a functional model of a biological system, it is important that a designer consider a number of key points: (1) The category and scale of the model must be chosen carefully such that the model may be valid to the research question and accurate to the system. (2) The energies associated with the biological system must be defined appropriately using analogous engineered system equivalents (e.g., Had change biological energy been used to model change chemical energy battery would not have been returned as an analogous component.) (3) Biological scale based on the detail of information provided might be a good place to start, but when developing the final model, the scale mus