Towards a sustainability-oriented development of biointelligent products

Abstract

A sustainable and safe satisfaction of needs can be expected to be achieved through so-called biointelligent systems, resulting from the convergence of life, engineering, and computer sciences. In the context of product design, two fundamental challenges emerge. First, the integration of living elements represents a component that has been largely absent from traditional development processes. Second, a variety of additional challenges arise to ensure contributions to sustainability, resulting from its multidisciplinary nature, e.g. miscommunication, various methodological approaches or conflicts of objectives. Therefore, a product development process that integrates biology, technology and informatics while considering sustainability aspects from the outset is becoming necessary. Given that existing sustainable product development concepts like Design for Sustainability or Ecodesign primarily refer to conventional product development methods, addressing sustainability in the development of biointelligent products poses a novel challenge. This work aims to propose a "Design for Biointelligence" framework by elaborating conceptual thoughts on a sustainability-oriented guideline for the development of biointelligent products. As a result, we state that a biointelligent product integrates biological and technical parts, transmits information through interaction between these parts and promotes sustainability. Through a case study of a biointelligent sensor system, potential challenges associated with developing biointelligent products were identified and conceptual thoughts on a guideline were elaborated.