Creative composition imitating animal and plant characteristics

Sonar-dolphin

In our country, there have long been examples of imitating creatures. According to legend, in more than 3000 BC, our ancestor Youchao imitated birds to build nests in trees to prevent the harm of wild animals. More than 4000 years ago, our ancestors "turned into cars when they saw the flying canopy", that is, they invented wheels when they saw the flying canopy rotating with the wind and made cars with wheels. The architecture of the mountain gate in front of the main hall of an ancient temple looks like an elephant in terms of its architectural structure. The pillar is round and thick, like an elephant's leg.

The industrious and brave working people in ancient China had long had all kinds of wonderful fantasies about the blue sea, the blue sky and the soaring goshawk. According to the historical records of Qin and Han dynasties, more than two thousand years ago, our people invented kites and applied them to military liaison. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Lu Ban, a craftsman of the State of Lu, first began to develop flying wooden birds. He was inspired by a kind of toothed grass blade that can cut the skin and invented the saw. According to Du Yang Miscellaneous Magazine, there was a Han nationality He Zhi in the Tang Dynasty, who said, "He is good at carving wood into the shapes of phoenix, crane, crow and magpie. When he drinks and pecks, it is no different from the truth. When he puts it on his abdomen, he can fly in the air, but it can be as high as 30 feet to 120 feet, and then he begins to descend. " During the Western Han Dynasty, some people made wings out of bird feathers and flew down from a high platform in an attempt to imitate the flight of birds. The above cases are enough to show that the working people in ancient China had carefully observed and studied the flapping and flying of birds, which was also one of the earliest bionic design activities. The invention of a rocket weapon "Shenhuo Flying Crow" in Ming Dynasty also reflected people's desire to learn from birds.

The imitation of aquatic animals-fish by the working people in ancient China was also fruitful. The ancients gained the freedom of water transportation by imitating fish living in water, cutting down trees and chiseling boats, making fish-shaped hulls out of wood, and using fish pectoral fins and caudal fins to paddle and paddle. Later, with the improvement of the production level, the dragon boat appeared, which was influenced by many animal shapes. The rocket weapon "Fire Dragon Out of the Water" used in ancient water wars somewhat imitated the meaning of animals. The above examples show that the early bionic design activities of the working people in ancient China created extraordinary achievements for the development of China's splendid ancient civilization.

In the history of foreign civilization, it has also experienced a similar process. In ancient Greek mythology with rich production knowledge, some people made wings out of feathers and wax and escaped from the maze; Thiel invented the saw, which is said to be inspired by the shape of the fish's back bone and the snake's palate bone. /kloc-In the 5th century, German astronomer Miller made iron flies and mechanical eagles and performed an air show.

/kloc-around 0/806, Kelly, a British scientist and one of the founders of aerodynamics, imitated the spindle shape of trout and groundhog and found a streamlined structure with low resistance. Kelly also designed a wing curve that imitated the wings of birds, which greatly promoted the birth of aviation technology. At the same time, French physiologist Maret made a detailed study on the flight of birds. In the book Animal Machines, he introduced the relationship between the weight of birds and the area of their wings. Helmholtz, a German, also found that the weight of flying animals is directly proportional to the cubic of body linearity when studying flying animals. Helmholtz's research pointed out the limitations of the size of flying objects. Through the detailed study and careful imitation of bird flying organs, according to the principle of bird flying mechanism, people finally made a glider capable of manned flight.

Later, the designer designed the boom of the excavator according to the posture of the crane. During World War I, people got inspiration from the wild boar who survived the gas war and designed a gas mask by imitating the nose of the wild boar. What is the principle of a submarine that floats and sinks flexibly in the ocean? Although we have no evidence to investigate whether the submarine designer consulted the opinions of the biological community when designing the submarine, it is not difficult to imagine that the designer must know that the swim bladder is an important organ used by fish to change the proportion of their bodies with the water so as to rise and fall in the water. Frogs are amphibians. Sports workers carefully studied the frog's movement posture in the water and summed up a set of labor-saving and fast swimming movements-breaststroke. In addition, the fins made for divers are almost completely made according to the shape of frog hind limbs, which greatly improves the diver's ability to move in the water.

Flies and spaceships

Nasty flies seem to have nothing to do with the grand space cause, but bionics closely connects them.

Flies are notorious "smelly things". They can be seen everywhere and have a bad smell. Flies have a particularly sensitive sense of smell, and can smell the smell thousands of meters away. But flies don't have noses. What does it rely on to act as a sense of smell? It turns out that the "nose" of flies-olfactory receptors are distributed on a pair of antennae on the head.

Each "nose" has only one "nostril" communicating with the outside world, which contains hundreds of olfactory nerve cells. If the smell enters the nostrils, these nerves will immediately convert the smell stimulus into nerve electrical impulses and send them to the brain. The brain can distinguish substances with different smells according to different nerve electrical impulses generated by substances with different smells. Therefore, the fly's antenna is like a sensitive gas analyzer.

Inspired by this, bionics successfully imitated a very strange small gas analyzer according to the structure and function of the olfactory organs of flies. The probe of this instrument is not metal, but a live fly. A very fine microelectrode is inserted into the olfactory nerve of the fly, and the guided neuroelectric signal is amplified by an electronic circuit and sent to an analyzer; The analyzer can give an alarm as soon as it finds the signal of odorous substances. This instrument has been installed in the cockpit of the spacecraft to detect the composition of the gas in the cabin.

This small gas analyzer can also measure harmful gases in submarines and mines. This principle can also be used to improve the input device of computer and the structural principle of gas chromatography analyzer.

From Fireflies to Artificial Luminescence

Since the invention of electric light, life has become more convenient and rich. But electric lamps can only convert a small part of electric energy into visible light, and most of the rest is wasted in the form of heat energy. The heat rays of electric lamps are harmful to people's eyes. So, is there a light source that only emits light without heating? Humans have turned their attention to nature again.

In nature, many creatures can emit light, such as bacteria, fungi, worms, mollusks, crustaceans, insects and fish, and the light emitted by these animals does not produce heat, so it is also called "cold light".

Fireflies are one of many luminous animals. There are about 65,438+0,500 species of fireflies. Their luminescent colors are yellow-green, orange, and their brightness is different. Fireflies emit cold light, which not only has high luminous efficiency, but also is generally soft, suitable for human eyes, and the light intensity is relatively high. Therefore, bioluminescence is an ideal light source for human beings.

Scientists found that the luminous device of fireflies is located in the abdomen. This light emitter consists of three parts: light emitting layer, transparent layer and reflecting layer. There are thousands of luminescent cells in the luminescent layer, all of which contain fluorescein and luciferase. Under the action of luciferase, fluorescein combines with oxidation to emit fluorescence with the participation of intracellular water. The luminescence of fireflies is essentially a process in which chemical energy is converted into light energy.

As early as 1940s, people created fluorescent lamps on the basis of studying fireflies, which greatly changed the lighting sources of human beings. In recent years, scientists first isolated pure fluorescein from fireflies, then isolated luciferase, and then synthesized fluorescein artificially by chemical methods. Biological light source composed of fluorescein, luciferase, ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and water can be used as a flash lamp in mines filled with explosive gas. Because this lamp has no power supply and does not produce magnetic field, it can be used to clear magnetic mines under the irradiation of biological light source.

Now, people can get cold light similar to biological light by mixing some chemicals for safe lighting.

Electric fish and volt battery

Many creatures in nature can generate electricity, and there are more than 500 kinds of fish alone. People call these discharging fish "electric fish".

All kinds of electric fish have different discharge skills. Electric ray, electric catfish and electric eel have the strongest discharge ability. Medium-sized torpedoes can generate about 70 volts, while African torpedoes can generate up to 220 volts; African electric catfish can generate 350 volts; Electric eels can generate 500 volts. There is a South American electric eel that can generate up to 880 volts, and it is called the champion of electric shock. It is said that it can kill big animals like horses.

Where is the mystery of electric fish discharge? Through the anatomical study of the electric fish, it is finally found that there is a strange power generation organ in the electric fish. These generators are made up of many translucent disk-shaped batteries, called electric plates or plates. Due to the different types of electric fish, the shape, position and quantity of the electric plates of the generator are also different. The generator of electric eel is prismatic and located in the muscles on both sides of the caudate spine. The torpedo generator is shaped like a flat kidney, arranged on both sides of the body midline, with 2 million electric plates. The generator of electric catfish originated from some kind of gland, located between skin and muscle, with about 5 million electric plates. The voltage generated by a single plate is very weak, but because there are many plates, the voltage generated is very large.

The extraordinary skills of electric fish have aroused great interest. /kloc-at the beginning of 0/9th century, Italian physicist Volt designed the world's earliest voltaic battery based on electric fish power generation organ. Because this kind of battery is designed according to the natural generator of electric fish, the research of electric fish called "artificial electric officer" also gives people such enlightenment: if the power generation organ of electric fish can be successfully imitated, then the power problem of ships and submarines can be solved well.

Jellyfish windward ears

"Swallows fly low before the rain, cicadas sing, and the sky clears up in the rain." Biological behavior is related to the change of weather. Fishermen along the coast know that fish and jellyfish living along the coast swim to the sea in batches, which indicates that a storm is coming.

Jellyfish, also known as jellyfish, is an ancient coelenterate that floated in the ocean as early as 500 million years ago. This lower animal has the instinct to predict storms, and every time before the storm warning, it will swim to the sea to take refuge.

It turns out that in the blue ocean, infrasound (frequency is 8- 13 times per second) generated by the friction between air and waves is always a prelude to storm warning. This infrasound is inaudible to the human ear, but the little jellyfish is very sensitive. Bionics found that there is a thin handle in the ear cavity of jellyfish, a small ball on the handle, and a small auditory stone in the ball. When the infrasound before the storm hit the auditory stone in the jellyfish's ear, the auditory stone stimulated the nerve receptors on the ball wall, so the jellyfish heard the rumble of the coming storm.

Bionics imitates the structure and function of jellyfish ears, designs a storm predictor for jellyfish ears, and accurately simulates the organs that jellyfish feel infrasound. This instrument is installed on the front deck of the ship. When it receives the infrasound wave of the storm, it can automatically stop the horn rotating 360 degrees, and the direction it refers to is the direction of the storm. The reading on the indicator can show the intensity of the storm. This forecaster can forecast storms 15 hours in advance, which is of great significance to navigation and fishery safety.

The ultrasonic wave of bats invented radar.

Insects are small in size, huge in species and quantity, accounting for more than 75% of existing animals, and spread all over the world. They have their own survival skills, some of which are not as good as human beings. People use natural resources more and more widely, especially any achievement in bionics comes from some characteristics of biology.

Butterfly and Bionics

Colorful butterflies, such as butterflies with double moon patterns, monarch butterflies with brown veins, especially butterflies with fluorescent wings, have golden, green and blue hind wings in the sun. Scientists have brought great benefits to military defense by studying the color of butterflies. During World War II, the Germans surrounded Leningrad in an attempt to destroy its military targets and other defense facilities with bombers. Schwarzenegger, an entomologist in the Soviet Union, put forward the principle that the color of butterflies is not easy to be found in flowers, and covered military facilities with butterfly-like camouflage. Therefore, although the Germans went all out, the military base in Leningrad remained undisturbed, which laid a solid foundation for winning the final victory. According to the same principle, people later produced camouflage uniforms, which greatly reduced the casualties in the battle.

The constant change of satellite position in space will cause a sudden change of temperature, sometimes the temperature difference can be as high as two or three hundred degrees, which seriously affects the normal work of many instruments. Inspired by the fact that the scales on butterflies automatically change their angles with the direction of sunlight to adjust their body temperature, scientists have made the satellite's temperature control system into a louver style with great differences in radiation and heat dissipation ability between the front and back of the blades. A temperature-sensitive metal wire is installed at the rotating position of each window, which can adjust the opening and closing of the window with the change of temperature, so as to keep the internal temperature of the satellite constant and solve a major problem in the aerospace industry.

Beetles and bionics

In self-defense, this beetle can spray high-temperature liquid "shells" with foul smell to confuse, stimulate and intimidate the enemy. After dissection, scientists found that there are three chambers in the beetle body, which store dihydric phenol solution, hydrogen peroxide and biological enzyme respectively. Diphenol and hydrogen peroxide flow into the third chamber and mix with biological enzyme to have a chemical reaction, which instantly becomes venom at 100℃ and is quickly ejected. This principle has been applied to military technology at present. During World War II, the German Nazis made a new engine with huge power and safe and reliable performance according to this mechanism, which was installed on cruise missiles, making it fly faster, safer and more stable, and improving the hit rate. London, England suffered heavy losses when it was bombed. American military experts have developed advanced binary weapons inspired by the principle of beetle spraying. This weapon contains two or more chemicals that can produce toxins in two separate containers. After the projectile was launched, the diaphragm broke, and the two poison intermediates mixed and reacted within 8- 10 seconds of the projectile's flight, producing deadly venom at the moment when it reached the target and killed the enemy. They are easy to produce, store and transport, safe and not easy to fail. Fireflies can directly convert chemical energy into light energy, and the conversion efficiency reaches 100%, while the luminous efficiency of ordinary electric lamps is only 6%. The cold light source made by people imitating the luminous principle of fireflies can improve luminous efficiency by more than ten times and save energy greatly. In addition, an air-to-ground speedometer based on beetle apparent motion response mechanism has been successfully applied to aviation.

Dragonflies and Bionics

Dragonflies can generate local unstable airflow different from the surrounding atmosphere through the vibration of their wings, and use the vortex generated by the airflow to make themselves rise. Dragonflies can soar under a small thrust, not only forward, but also backward and left and right, and its forward flight speed can reach 72 km/h. In addition, the flight behavior of dragonflies is simple, with only two pairs of wings flapping constantly. Scientists have successfully developed a helicopter based on this structural foundation. When an airplane flies at high speed, it often causes violent vibration, and sometimes even breaks its wings, causing the airplane to crash. Dragonflies rely on aggravated wing moles to fly safely at high speed, so people follow the example of dragonflies and add weights to the two wings of the plane to solve the thorny problem of vibration caused by high-speed flight.

In order to study the aerodynamics and flight efficiency of gliding flight and collision, a mobile wing (wing) model with four-blade drive and remote horizontal control was developed, and the flight parameters were tested in the wind tunnel for the first time.

The second model tries to install a wing flying at a faster frequency, reaching the speed of 18 vibrations per second. What is different is that this model adopts a device that can variably adjust the phase difference between the front and rear wings.

The central and long-term goal of this research is to study the performance of aircraft driven by "wing" and compare it with the efficiency of aircraft driven by traditional propeller.

Flies and Bionics

The special feature of housefly is its fast flying technology, which makes it difficult to be caught by humans. Even behind it, it is difficult to get close to it. It imagines every situation, is very careful and can move quickly. So, how did it do it?

Entomologists found that the back wings of flies degenerated into a pair of balance bars. When it flies, the balance bar vibrates mechanically at a certain frequency, which can adjust the movement direction of its wings. It is a navigator to keep the balance of flies. Based on this principle, scientists have developed a new generation of navigator-vibrating gyroscope, which greatly improves the flight performance of the aircraft, enables the aircraft to automatically stop the dangerous rollover flight, and automatically restore the balance when the body is strongly inclined, even when the aircraft is in the most complicated sharp turn. The fly's compound eye contains 4000 single eyes that can be imaged independently, and almost 360 can be seen clearly. Objects within range. Inspired by the fly's eye, people made a fly's eye camera consisting of 1329 small lenses, which can take 1329 high-resolution photos at one time. It is widely used in military, medical, aviation and aerospace fields. Flies have a particularly sensitive sense of smell and can quickly analyze dozens of smells and respond immediately. According to the structure of flies' olfactory organs, scientists have converted various chemical reactions into electric pulses, and made a very sensitive small gas analyzer, which is widely used in spacecraft, submarines, mines and other gas components, making the safety factor of scientific research and production more accurate and reliable.

Bees and Bionics

Beehives are composed of hexagonal small hives arranged neatly, and the bottom of each small hive is composed of three identical diamonds. These structures are exactly the same as those accurately calculated by modern mathematicians-the obtuse angle of the diamond is109 28' and the acute angle is 70 32'. They are the most material-saving structures, and they are very large and strong, which surprised many experts. People imitate its structure and make honeycomb sandwich structural plates with various materials. This structural plate has high strength, light weight and is not easy to conduct sound and heat. They are ideal materials for making space shuttles, spaceships and artificial satellites. Polarizers sensitive to the direction of polarized light are arranged adjacent to each single eye of the compound eye of bees, which can be accurately positioned by the sun. Based on this principle, scientists have successfully developed a polarized light navigator, which has been widely used in navigation.

Other insects and bionics

Fleas have a high jumping ability, and aviation experts have done a lot of research on it. Inspired by its vertical take-off, a British aircraft manufacturing company successfully manufactured a Harrier aircraft that can take off and land almost vertically. According to the structural characteristics of insects' single compound eyes, modern television technology has created a large-screen color TV, which can also be composed of small color TV screens. Some specific small pictures can be framed at any position on the same screen, and the same picture can be played as well as different pictures. According to the structural characteristics of insect compound eyes, scientists have successfully developed a multi-aperture optical system device that is easier to find targets, and it has been applied in some important weapon systems abroad. According to the mutual inhibition principle of some aquatic insects compound eyes, an electronic model of lateral inhibition is made, which can be used in various photographic systems. The photos taken can enhance the contrast of the image edge and highlight the outline, and can also be used to improve the display sensitivity of radar, and can also be used for preprocessing the text and picture recognition system. Based on the processing information of insect compound eye and the principle of directional navigation, the United States has developed an engineering model of terminal guidance seeker with great practical value. Japan has developed new construction methods of construction machinery and buildings such as hexapod robots by using the morphology and characteristics of insects.

Future prospects

Insects have evolved gradually with the change of environment in the evolution process of hundreds of millions of years, and they are developing their own survival skills to varying degrees. With the development of society, people are more and more aware of various life activities of insects, and more and more aware of the importance of insects to human beings. Coupled with the application of information technology, especially the application of the new generation of computer bioelectronics technology in entomology, a series of biotechnology projects, such as biosensors developed by simulating insect's perceptual ability to detect the types and concentrations of substances, and computers developed by imitating brain activities with reference to insect's neural structure, will turn scientists' ideas into reality and enter various fields, and insects will make greater contributions to mankind.