Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems (Bar-Cohen, 2006). Biomimetic research operates in three directions. First, by promoting a flow of ideas from the biological sciences into engineering the latter can benefit from the millions of years of design effort performed by natural selection. Second, biomimetic artefacts can provide excellent models of their biological counterparts, allowing us to ask and answer questions about the biological system that cannot be addressed through experiment alone. Biomimetic systems thus provide a test-bed for theoretical ideas in biology and a means for generating new hypotheses for empirical research. This approach becomes particularly important when considering interactions among many elements across different levels of organization. Third, the construction of artefacts as models implies the availability of a new class of ICT that can be advanced towards innovation and direct application.
