title: Performance assessment of bio-inspired systems: flow sensing MEMS hairs.
abstract: Despite vigorous growth in biomimetic design, the performance of man-made devices relative to their natural templates is still seldom quantified, a procedure which would however significantly increase the rigour of the biomimetic approach. We applied the ubiquitous engineering concept of a figure of merit (FoM) to MEMS flow sensors inspired by cricket filiform hairs. A well known mechanical model of a hair is refined and tailored to this task. Five criteria of varying importance in the biological and engineering fields are computed: responsivity, power transfer, power efficiency, response time and detection threshold. We selected the metrics response time and detection threshold for building the FoM to capture the performance in a single number. Crickets outperform actual MEMS on all criteria for a large range of flow frequencies. Our approach enables us to propose several improvements for MEMS hair-sensor design.
authors.affiliation: MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Droogendijk
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Casas
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Steinmann
authors.forename: G J M
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Krijnen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D055119:Elastic Modulus / Q000502:physiology; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006135:Gryllidae / Q000502:physiology*; D006197:Hair / Q000502:physiology*; D008465:Mechanoreceptors / Q000502:physiology; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008954:Models, Biological; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012212:Rheology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012684:Sensory Thresholds / Q000502:physiology; D033081:Shear Strength / Q000502:physiology; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D014783:Viscosity