Assessment of the biomimetic toolset—Design spiral methodology analysis

Abstract

The potential of bio-inspired design has been illustrated many times over human history. Nevertheless its process is complex, as biologists and engineers have to work together without necessarily sharing the same vision or language. Methods and tools have therefore been developed in order to support these kind of approaches. Following the outlined problem-driven biomimetic process, the article seeks to provide a global view of the existing biomimetic toolset. To do so, tools are classified according to their methodological purpose. For each identified type of tools an evaluation chart has been generated. By its experiment, the article addresses more specifically the assessment of tools originating from the Design Spirals methodology. The article provides thereby an identification of advantages, high accessibility and convenience, and limitations, need to be coupled with other tools, of the assessed tools. This identification leads to the proposal of an axis of research to develop new biomimetics tools.