W05-(12) Bio-inspired Design of Materials for Actuators and Sensors

Abstract

Biological systems adapted and perfected the design and functioning of their structures during thousands of years of evolution in a changing and increasingly more complex, competitive and challenging world. It is therefore smart in itself to study, understand and adopt nature's time-tested principles and mechanisms to the design of adaptive structures and intelligent materials. Here we focus on autonomous and locally controlled responses, which do not require or the remote control by a central nervous system. We look at three kinds of mechanisms. First, the principles of touch and light sensing in plants and single-celled algae will be examined for their applicability to trigger, modify and control actuation mechanisms. Second, the study of various actuators in plants provides a wide set of alternative choices to create novel, energy-conservative actuation mechanisms in intelligent materials. Third, the comparison of biological, filament-based muscles and artificial, polymer gel-based actuators provides the means to develop and test alternative explanations of the mechanics of muscle contraction and to find the causes or conditions causing the superior speed in natural systems.