The word bionics was formed by Steele of the United States in 196 according to the Latin word "bios (meaning of life style)" and the suffix "NLC (meaning" having the nature of ").
bionics is a word composed of the Greek bion with the meaning of life and ics with the meaning of engineering technology. It has only been used since about 196. The functions of living things are far superior to those of any artificial machinery, and bionics is a subject to realize and effectively apply biological functions in engineering. For example, regarding information reception (sensory function), information transmission (neural function), automatic control system, etc., the structure and function of this organism have given great inspiration in mechanical design. Examples of bionics can be cited, such as applying the body shape or skin structure of dolphins (which can prevent turbulence on the body surface when swimming) to the design principle of submarines. Bionics is also considered to be a discipline closely related to cybernetics, and cybernetics mainly compares life phenomena with mechanical principles, and studies and explains them.
flies are the disseminators of bacteria, and everyone hates them. However, the wings of flies (also called balance bars) are "natural navigators", and people imitate them to make "vibrating gyroscopes". This instrument has been applied to rockets and high-speed aircraft at present, realizing automatic driving. The fly's eye is a kind of "compound eye", which consists of more than 3 small eyes. People imitate it and make a "fly's eye lens". The "fly-eye lens" is composed of hundreds or thousands of small lenses arranged in order, and it can be used as a lens to make a "fly-eye camera", which can take thousands of identical photos at a time. This kind of camera has been used for printing plate making and copying a large number of tiny circuits of electronic computers, which greatly improves the work efficiency and quality. "Fly-eye lens" is a new type of optical element, which has many uses.
what kind of strange skills do the non-gain-loss creatures of the nature have? What inspiration have their skills given to mankind? What kind of machines can humans build by imitating these skills? A new science to be introduced here-bionics.
[ Edit this paragraph] The origin of human bionics
Since ancient times, nature has been the source of various technical ideas, engineering principles and major inventions of human beings. After a long evolution process, a wide variety of biological communities can adapt to the changes in the environment, so as to survive and develop bionics exhibitions. Labor created human beings. With its upright body, hands capable of working, and language for exchanging emotions and thoughts, human beings have promoted the development of the nervous system, especially the brain, in the long-term production practice. Therefore, the unparalleled ability and wisdom of human beings far exceed all groups in the biological world. Through labor, human beings use their intelligence and dexterous hands to make tools, thus gaining greater freedom in nature. The wisdom of human beings not only stays in observing and understanding the biological world, but also imitates biology by using the unique thinking and design ability of human beings, and increases their skills through creative labor. Fish have the ability to come and go freely in the water, so people imitate the shape of fish to build ships and imitate fins with wooden paddles. According to legend, as early as the Dayu period, working people in ancient China observed fish swimming and turning with their tails swinging in the water, and they put wooden paddles on the stern. Through repeated observation, imitation and practice, it was gradually changed to paddle and rudder, which increased the power of the ship and mastered the means of turning the ship. In this way, even in the rolling rivers, people can let ships sail freely.
Birds can spread their wings and fly freely in the air. According to "Han Feizi", Lu Ban used bamboo as a bird to "fly after success, not for three days". However, people prefer to imitate the wings of birds and make themselves fly in the air. As early as more than 4 years ago, Italian Leonardo da Vinci and his assistant carefully dissected birds, studied their body structure and carefully observed their flight. A flapping-wing aircraft was designed and manufactured, which is the first man-made aircraft in the world.
These inventions and attempts to imitate biological structure and function can be regarded as the pioneers of human bionics and the seeds of bionics.
[ Edit this paragraph] A thought-provoking comparison
Although the bionic behavior of human beings has already taken shape, before the 194s, people did not consciously regard biology as the source of design ideas and inventions. Scientists' research on biology only stays on describing the exquisite structure and perfect function of organisms. And engineers and technicians rely more on their excellent wisdom, hard work and artificial inventions. They seldom consciously learn from biology. However, the following facts can explain that some technical problems encountered by people appeared in the biological world as early as millions of years ago and were solved in the process of evolution. However, human beings did not get due enlightenment from the biological world.
During the First World War, submarines were built for the purpose of making ships sail under water. When engineers and technicians design the original submarine, they first put stones or lead blocks on the submarine to make it sink. If it needs to rise to the surface, they will throw away the stones or lead blocks they carry to make the hull return to the surface. Later, after improvement, the weight of the submarine was changed by alternately filling water and draining water in the buoyancy tank. Later, it was changed into a ballast tank, with a vent valve at the upper part of the tank and a water injection valve at the lower part. When the tank was filled with seawater, the weight of the hull increased to make it dive into the water. When it is necessary to dive in an emergency, there is also a speed diving cabin. After the hull dives into the water, the seawater in the speed diving cabin is discharged. If one part of the ballast tank is filled with water and the other part is empty, the submarine can be in a semi-submersible state. When the submarine wants to float, compressed air is introduced into the water tank to discharge seawater, and the submarine can float after the weight of seawater in the boat is reduced. Such a superior mechanical device realizes the free ups and downs of the submarine. However, it was later found that the fish's ups and downs system was much simpler than people's invention, and the fish's ups and downs system was just an inflatable swim bladder. The swim bladder is not controlled by muscles, but depends on secreting oxygen into the swim bladder or reabsorbing some oxygen in the swim bladder to adjust the gas content in the swim bladder and promote the fish to rise and fall freely. However, it is too late to inspire and help submarine designers with such a clever ups and downs system of fish.
sound is an indispensable element in people's lives. Through language, people exchange ideas and feelings, beautiful music enables people to enjoy art, and engineers and technicians also apply acoustic systems to industrial production and military technology, which has become one of the most important information. Since the submarine came out, it has been followed by how the ships on the surface find the position of the submarine to prevent sneak attack; After the submarine sinks into the water, it is also necessary to accurately determine the orientation and distance of the enemy ship to facilitate the attack. Therefore, during the First World War, on the ocean, various means were used in the struggle between the opposing sides in the water and the water. Naval engineers also use acoustic systems as an important reconnaissance means. First of all, hydrophone, also known as noise direction finder, is used to find enemy ships by listening to the noise made by them during navigation. As long as there are enemy ships sailing in the surrounding waters, machines and propellers will make noise, which can be heard through hydrophones and the enemy can be found in time. But at that time, the hydrophone was not perfect, and generally it could only receive the noise of its own ship. To listen to enemy ships, it was necessary to slow down the speed of the ship or even stop completely to distinguish the noise of submarines, which was not conducive to combat operations. Soon, the French scientist langevin (1872 ~ 1946) successfully used the properties of ultrasonic reflection to detect underwater ships. Use an ultrasonic generator to send ultrasonic waves into the water, and if it meets the target, it will be reflected back and received by the receiver. According to the time interval and direction of receiving echo, the direction and distance of the target can be measured, which is the so-called sonar system. The invention of artificial sonar system and its outstanding achievements in detecting enemy submarines have amazed people. Don't you know that bats and dolphins used the echolocation sonar system freely long before humans appeared on the earth?
For a long time, living things have lived in the nature surrounded by sound. They use sound to seek food, escape from enemies and mate and reproduce. Therefore, sound is an important information for living things. Italian scientist Spalanjie discovered a long time ago that bats can fly at will in complete darkness, not only avoiding obstacles but also preying on flying insects. But after plugging bats' ears and sealing their mouths, they can't move in the dark. Faced with these facts, Sparanjie put forward an unacceptable conclusion: bats can "see" with their ears and mouths. They can send out ultrasonic waves with their mouths and receive them with their ears when they touch obstacles and reflect back. After the end of World War I, in 192, Hatay believed that the frequency of sound signals emitted by bats was beyond the hearing range of human ears. It is also pointed out that the bat's method of locating the target is the same as that invented by Lang Zhiwan in World War I by ultrasonic echo. Unfortunately, Hatay's tips have not attracted people's attention, and engineers can't believe that bats have the technology of "echolocation". It was not until 1983 that the electronic measuring instrument was adopted that it was completely confirmed that bats were located by emitting ultrasonic waves. But this is no longer helpful for the early invention of radar and sonar.
another example is that people study insect behavior too late. 4 years after Leonardo da Vinci studied bird flight and built the first flying machine, people finally invented the plane in 193 after long-term repeated practice, which made human beings realize their dream of flying into the sky. Due to continuous improvement, 3 years later, people's planes surpassed birds in speed, altitude and flight distance, showing human wisdom and talent. However, while continuing to develop faster and higher flying aircraft, designers have encountered another difficult problem, that is, flutter phenomenon in gas dynamics. When the plane flies, the wings vibrate harmfully. The faster the flight, the stronger the flutter of the wings, and even the wings break, causing the plane to fall, and many test pilots are killed. Aircraft designers have spent a lot of energy on eliminating the harmful flutter phenomenon, and it took a long time to find a solution to this problem. A weighting device is placed at the far end of the leading edge of the wing, thus eliminating harmful vibration. However, insects flew in the air as early as 3 million years ago, and they were also harmed by flutter without exception. After long-term evolution, insects have already successfully obtained methods to prevent flutter. When biologists study dragonfly wings, they find that there is a dark keratin thickening area above the leading edge of each wing-wing eye or wing mole. If the wing eye is removed, the flight will become swinging. Experiments have proved that it is the horny tissue of the wing eye that makes the dragonfly's flying wings eliminate the danger of flutter, which is similar to the designer's superb invention. If designers learn the function of wing eye from insects first, and get the design idea that is beneficial to solve flutter, they can avoid long-term exploration and personnel sacrifice. Facing the eyes of dragonfly wings, aircraft designers have a feeling of meeting each other late!
The above three examples are thought-provoking and inspire people greatly. Long before humans appeared on the earth, all kinds of creatures had lived in nature for hundreds of millions of years, and gained the ability to adapt to nature in their long-term evolution of struggle for survival. Biological research can show that the extremely accurate and perfect mechanism formed in the process of evolution makes them have the ability to adapt to changes in internal and external environment. There are many fruitful skills in biology. Such as biosynthesis in the body, energy conversion, information reception and transmission, recognition of the outside world, navigation, directional calculation and synthesis, etc., show the incomparable advantages of many machines. The small, sensitive, fast, efficient, reliable and anti-interference of biology is really amazing.
[ Edit this paragraph] Bionics is of great significance
Bionics is a bridge connecting biology and technology
Since James Watt (1736 ~ 1819) invented the steam engine in 1782, people have gained great impetus in the production struggle. In terms of industrial technology, the problems of energy conversion, control and utilization were basically solved, which led to the first industrial revolution, and various machines appeared like mushrooms after rain. The development of industrial technology greatly expanded and enhanced people's physical fitness and freed people from heavy manual labor. With the development of technology, people have experienced the electrical age after the steam engine and moved towards the automation age.
The advent of electronic computers in the 194s added valuable wealth to the treasure house of human science and technology. It handled tens of thousands of information in people's hands with reliable and efficient skills, freeing people from the sea of figures and information in Wang Yang. Using computers and automatic devices can make people easy and labor-saving in the face of complicated production procedures. They accurately adjust and control production procedures and make product specifications accurate. However, the automatic control device works according to the fixed program formulated by people, which makes its control ability have great limitations. The automatic device lacks the ability to analyze and react flexibly to the outside world. If any unexpected situation occurs, the automatic device will stop working or even have an accident, which is the serious shortcoming of the automatic device itself. To overcome this shortcoming, it is nothing more than "communication" between various parts of the machine and between the machine and the environment, that is, the automatic control device has the ability to adapt to changes in the internal and external environment. To solve this problem, how to accept and transform is necessary in engineering technology. The problem of using and controlling information. Therefore, the use and control of information has become a major contradiction in the development of industrial technology. How to solve this contradiction? The biological world has provided beneficial enlightenment to mankind.
In order to gain enlightenment from biological systems, human beings need to first study whether there are * * * identical characteristics between biological and technical devices. The regulation theory, which appeared in 194, compares biology with machine in a general sense. By 1944, some scientists had made it clear that a series of problems such as communication, automatic control and statistical mechanics between machines and organisms were consistent. On the basis of this understanding, in 1947, a new discipline-cybernetics came into being.
Cybernetics comes from Greek, and its original meaning is "steering". According to one of the founders of cybernetics, Norbef Wiener (1894 ~ 1964), cybernetics is defined as "science about control and communication in animals and machines". Although this definition is too simple and only a subtitle of Wiener's classic works on cybernetics, it directly links people's understanding of biology and machines.
The basic viewpoint of cybernetics holds that there are certain * * * bodies between animals (especially people) and machines (including all kinds of automatic devices for communication, control and calculation), that is, there are certain * * * identical laws in their control systems. According to the research of cybernetics, the control process of various control systems includes information transmission, transformation and processing. Control system