Justifying bio-inspired robotics research: A taxonomy of strategies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a taxonomy of motivations for bio-inspired design in robotics to help justify approaches and evaluate their potential contributions systematically.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic taxonomy of motivations for bio-inspired robotics, addressing inconsistencies and aiding justification and evaluation of design strategies.

Findings

Developed a taxonomy of bio-inspired design motivations

Clarified how different motivations lead to specific contributions

Aimed to improve justification and assessment in bio-inspired robotics

Abstract

For most of human history, we have not thought systematically about how and why we incorporate aspects of the natural world into our designs. The lack of a systematic approach has resulted in inconsistencies in motivations and methods that make it difficult to predict or evaluate the success of bio-inspired design. This mismatch between expectations and results can lead to disappointment when a reader considers a bio-inspired design to be superficial, weak, or incomplete. This is especially true in the field of Robotics, in which similarity to a biological system might be the driving motivation for construction. In an effort to assist robotics researchers justify their specific bio-inspired approach and to assist funding program managers with discerning the value of different bio-inspired approaches, here we propose a taxonomy of motivations for bio-inspired design and describe the potential significant contributions that are likely to result from different approaches.