Lessons from natural flight for aviation: then, now and tomorrow

Powered flight was once a capability limited only to animals, but by identifying useful attributes of animal flight and building on these with technological advances, engineers have pushed the frontiers of flight beyond our predecessors’ wildest imaginations. Yet, there remain many key characteristics of biological flight that elude current...

Bio-inspired intent communication for automated vehicles

Various external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) have been proposed that communicate the intent of automated vehicles (AVs) to vulnerable road users. However, there is no consensus on which eHMI concept is most suitable for intent communication. In nature, animals have evolved the ability to communicate intent via visual signals. Inspired by...

Nature–Inspired self–cleaning surfaces: Mechanisms, modelling, and manufacturing

Nature-inspired self-cleaning surfaces have attracted considerable attention from both fundamental research and practical applications. This review adopts a chemical-engineering point of view and focuses on mechanisms, modelling, and manufacturing (M3) of nature-inspired self-cleaning surfaces. We will introduce six nature-inspired self...

Evolving Asteroid Starships: A bio-inspired approach for interstellar space systems

The hostile and unpredictable environment of deep space requires a new conceptual approach for interstellar flight, one that differs radically from any current design in aerospace. A design solution is proposed in which the starship is attached to a C-type asteroid and whose architecture evolves over time. The starship gradually mines...