In 2011 and 2012, we organized two workshops on computer-aided bio-inspired design sponsored by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF). These workshops brought together a few dozen leading researchers in computational methods and tools for biologically inspired design,1 and led to an edited volume [1]. The first chapter of the volume reports on the discussions at the two workshops. The success of the two workshops also led to this JMD special issue.
The special issue consists of 13 significant articles. The first section contains two survey articles. In “‘Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?’: The BioM Innovation Database,” Jacobs, Nichol, and Helms carefully and rigorously attempt to identify and archive the state of bio-inspired design practice as it exists in actual artifacts, products, and systems. Specifically, the authors address four questions. (1) Are products which are identified as being bio-inspired actually bio-inspired? (2)...
