title: Biomimetic bio-inspired biomorph sustainable? An attempt to classify and clarify biology-derived technical developments.
abstract: Over the last few decades, the systematic approach of knowledge transfer from biological concept generators to technical applications has received increasing attention, particularly because marketable bio-derived developments are often described as sustainable. The objective of this paper is to rationalize and refine the discussion about bio-derived developments also with respect to sustainability by taking descriptive, normative and emotional aspects into consideration. In the framework of supervised learning, a dataset of 70 biology-derived and technology-derived developments characterised by 9 different attributes together with their respective values and assigned to one of 17 classes was created. On the basis of the dataset a decision tree was generated which can be used as a straightforward classification tool to identify biology-derived and technology-derived developments. The validation of the applied learning procedure achieved an average accuracy of 90.0%. Additional extraordinary qualities of technical applications are generally discussed by means of selected biology-derived and technology-derived examples with reference to normative (contribution to sustainability) and emotional aspects (aesthetics and symbolic character). In the context of a case study from the building sector, all aspects are critically discussed.
authors.affiliation: Plant Biomechanics Group, Botanic Garden, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestraße 1, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Speck
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Speck
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Horn
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gantner
authors.forename: Klaus Peter
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Sedlbauer
mesh_terms: D001695:Biology; D040761:Biomimetic Materials; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000145:classification* / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D066264:Datasets as Topic; D003663:Decision Trees; D004738:Engineering; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D000069553:Supervised Machine Learning; D000075042:Sustainable Growth; D018581:Technology Transfer