Constraints: Robert J. Full

Bioinspired Design
BioConstraints
Professor
Robert J. Full
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Integrative Biology
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
rjfull@berkeley.edu
http://polypedal.berkeley.edu; http://ciber.berkeley.edu
http://biodesign.berkeley.edu
IB32L&S30UCBerkeley 2/3/2020 1
Reminders
1. Get iClickers Ready.
2. Upload Individual Assignment Gecko Paper #2 by
Thursday at Feb. 6th, 6PM.
3. Submit Next Team Connection by Feb. 9th, 6PM.
4. Submit Individual Connection (Liking) by Feb. 9th.
5. Get your Maker Pass.
6. Print Finger of Prosthetic Hand. Take Selfie with 3D
Printer. Due February 13th, 6PM.
7. Office hours in 5128 VLSB today.
Submit Team & Individual Connection Link
Team Connection Due Sunday before 6PM; 3 Teams will present Monday at Beginning fo Class
Individual Connection Submitted by Each Student Liking one or more Connections from Previous Week
Team #6 Connection Team #8 Connection
Like Individual Connection
Team #17 Connection Team #24 Connection
Effective Bioinspired Design
BioDiscovery How to discover Nature’s principles?
BioDesign How do I design from Nature?
BioConstraints How are Nature’s designs

compromised?
BioSelection How do I select the best inspiration?
BioScaling How do I consider size?
BioComplexity How to simplify & extract principles?

Analogy
Design Solution Design Problem
Check
Solution Driven Behaviors 

Organism Similar?
Behaviors 
Invention Name
Analogy

(What does system or organism do?) (What do you want system to do?)

Table Structural Components 

(What is structure or organization of system?)

Structural Components 
(What can the structure be?)

Operating Environment  Operating Environment 

(Where?) (Where?)

Constraints  Size 
(What is size?)

Size 
(What size needed?)
(What
compromises Functional Mechanisms 

(How does system work?)

Functional Mechanisms 
(How do you want the system to work?)
system?)
Characteristics/Specification  Characteristics/Specification 

(Which are distinguishing?) (What are your specifications?)

Performance Criteria  Performance Criteria 

(How well does system work?) (How well must the system work?)

Constraints  Constraints 

(What compromises system?) (Can compromises be removed?)

Learning from Nature
“Human ingenuity may make various
inventions, but it will never devise any
invention more beautiful, nor more
simple, nor more to the purpose than
Nature does; because in her inventions
nothing is wanting and nothing is
superfluous.”
- da Vinci, 15th century
Typical contemporary claims…
"There is nothing to invent that is not already

present in nature."
(Science Musings, Boston Globe)
"…the utter technological superiority of

would-be lower life-forms."
(Review of Biomimicry, New York Times)
From Vogel
Typical contemporary claims…
"Ninety-nine percent of all species that existed on earth are

extinct. The 1 percent here are the ones that work best.
Think of our planet as a research-and-development lab in
which the best ideas have moved forward, and the ones that
used too much energy or materials or were toxic were
dropped. What you wind up with are organisms that are
efficient.”
(How Biomimicry Works. Janine Benyus, Readers Digest
2014)
iClicker Question
After 3.8 Billion Years of

Evolution, Organisms are:
A. Designed for Current Environment
B. Optimally Designed
C. Designed to be Just Good Enough
D. Poorly Designed - 99% Extinct
Optimality?
Vestigial Organs
Third eyelid
reptiles, birds, sharks, camels, polar

bears, seals
Optimality?
Biomimicry
Natural
Selection is Copy
Nature
not
Engineering
Evolution “just good enough”

“carries baggage of past and is
blind to future changes”
Evolution is NOT Engineering
- Engineers often have final goals, whereas biological
evolution does not.
- Organisms must do a multitude of tasks, whereas in
engineering executing far fewer tasks will do.
- Trade-offs are the rule, severe constraints are pervasive and
global optimality rare in biological systems.
- Biological evolution works more as a tinkerer than an
engineer.
- Tinkerers never really know what they will produce and use
everything at their disposal to make something workable.
IB32L&S30UCBerkeley 2/3/2020 Jacob (1977) 14
Design in Biology
Wings are Designed for Flying
Wings have Evolved by Natural Selection
Teleology that Permit Flying
1 a : the study of evidence of design in nature
b : a doctrine that implies vitalism (processes of life not
explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone)
c : a doctrine explaining phenomena by final causes
2: the fact or character attributed to nature or natural

processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a
purpose Nature has no final cause or purpose.
3: the use of design or purpose as an explanation of natural
phenomena
Beware - False Analogy
A B M Complex
Mechanisms
Premise
A watch and an eye are similar because they are irreducibly complex.
Premise
A watch was designed by an intelligent designer - a watchmaker.
Therefore, Creationists’
Intelligent Design
Conclusion Argument
The eye was designed by an intelligent designer.
Optimality vs Satisficing
Approaches?
Organisms are Not Optimally

Designed
Evolution Often Fails to Keep Pace with the
Rate of Environmental Change.
Today's Adaptation is Tomorrow's Constraint.
Specialization is Often an Evolutionary Dead
End.
Optimality vs Satisficing
Approaches?
Organisms are Not
Optimally Designed Local
Maxima
Get Get Trapped in Local
Maxima (not most fit).
All Traits are Not Equally
Heritable.
Genetic Drift Can Counter
Evolution.
How Do We Get Useful Design
Advice from Nature?
Design Constraints
Natural Technologies
1. Developmental Constraint - Must Grow
2. Functional Constraint - Multi-functionality
3. Historical Constraint - Modify Ancestor
4. Sexual Selection - Adaptive Solution to

Attract Mate but Non-optimal Performance
Reasons for Non-Optimal
Bio-Designs
Must Grow
Neurons to Nowhere
Adults lost ability to fly.

Flight muscles absent.
Neurons remain!
Developmental Constraint
Bio-Designs
Queathem & Full, 1995
Max
Jump
Distance
(cm)
0 5 10 15
Time since last moult (days)
21
IB32L&S30UCBerkeley 2/3/2020
Bio-Designs
Design Compromised by Growth?
Gecko foot
Four Clawed and One
Adhesive Toe Must be
Adaptive
Growth pattern limits
number of digits
Bio-Designs
Organisms Must Grow

Imagine Requiring Engineers to Build an Auto
that is 1cm, then 1m, then Full Size
Final Design is Compromised
Bio-Designs
Design Compromised by Multi-
functionality?
Jump, Run,
Climb Using Hydraulic System
Hydraulic is also Circulatory
System to System Used for
Extend Legs. O2, fuel and
No Extensor hormone delivery.
Muscles.
Functional Constraint
Bio-Designs
Skin functions in
temperature regulation, Multi-functionality
exteroreception, Skin
osmoregulation, respiration,
acid-base balance,
encryption, warning, mate
attraction, as a barrier to
infection, protection from
physical assaults, and rapid
healing from wounds.
Designed optimally for what?
Bio-Designs
Engineers are not constrained to pre-existing designs and materials inherited from an ancestor.
Must follow inherited plan
Evolutionary Baggage
Legacy Code
Pelvic
bones in a Raven and Johnson
whale
Evolutionary Constraint
Challenge of Systems with History
No! Need
Could an engineer Knowledge of
reconstruct a Boeing History
777, one of the most
complicated machines
ever built by humans,
if all of its designs
plans and engineers Complex System
disappeared? Using Parts and
Plans from Past
Bio-Designs
How has
evolutionary
history
“compromised”
your design
inspiration?
Evolution in Action
Bio-Designs
Fly Dig and Run
Swim Grasp
Similar bones in all Bat
Human
vertebrate limbs Mole
Horse
Can’t be Optimal for

All Modes of
Orangutan
Whale
Dino
Locomotion
Lion
Similarity a result of Bird
history Sea lion

Sloth
Raven and
Johnson
Bio-Designs
Bizarre
Bones in
Middle Ear
to Produce
Sound.
Engineer
Explained Would
by Never Build
Evolutionary from
Constraint. Scratch!
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_05
Bio-Designs
Major Tinkering
Bio-Designs
Legacy Neural Circuits
Herberholz, J. Recordings of Neural Circuit Activation in Freely Behaving Animals. J. Vis. Exp. (29), e1297, doi:10.3791/1297 (2009)
Bio-Designs
300 million years ago ancestors activated all segments to move.

Today, the tail flip results from activating only the front segments.
If the rear flexors alone turned on they would propel the animal
toward the predator!
Front Rear
Dumont & Robertson, 1986

Non-Optimal Circuits
Dumont & Robertson, 1986
Never activates rear segments alone because another circuit
has been layered on top and always inhibits the rear flexors.
Illogical, ill conceived and non-optimal. Makes no sense unless
you understand history. Mistake to copy!
Front Segments
Sensory Medial Motor Flexor
Interneurons Giants Neurons Muscles
Stimulus
Sensory Medial Motor Flexor
Interneurons Giants Neurons Muscles
Excite Flexor
Inhibitor
Inhibit Rear Segments
Bio-Designs
Nerve's route direct in fish-like ancestors.
Traveling from brain, past the heart, to the gills.
Extreme detour in giraffes
Recurrent laryngeal nerves 4.6 meters (15 ft)
Recurrent laryngeal
nerve innervates only
muscles that can open
the vocal cords
Reasons for Non-Optimal Bio-Designs
Dinos, Really?
A monument of inefficiency: The
Neurons may have
presumed course of the
been 40–50 meters
recurrent laryngeal nerve in long, probably the
sauropod dinosaurs longest cells in the
The recurrent laryngeal nerve is an often cited example of history of life
“unintelligent design” in biology, especially in the giraffe.
The nerve appears early in embryonic development, before
the pharyngeal and aortic arches are separated by the
development of the neck. The recurrent course of the nerve
from the brain, around the great vessels, to the larynx, is
shared by all extant tetrapods. Therefore we may infer that
the recurrent laryngeal nerve was present in extinct
tetrapods, had the same developmental origin, and
followed the same course. The longest−necked animals of
all time were the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, some of
which had necks 14 meters long. In these animals, the
neurons that comprised the recurrent laryngeal nerve were
at least 28 meters long. Still longer neurons may have
spanned the distance from the end of the tail to the
brainstem, as in all extant vertebrates. In the longest
sauropods these neurons may have been 40–50 meters
long, probably the longest cells in the history of life.
Wedel, M.J. 2012. A monument of inefficiency: The

presumed course of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in
sauropod dinosaurs. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 57
(2): 251–256.
Bio-Designs
Adaptive Solution for Another Problem
Can Even Work in Direct Opposition to Natural Selection
Attracting a mate
Red-billed streamertail birds
have highly elongated and
elaborate feathers that
reduce flight performance.
Clark, C.J. and R. Dudley. (2009) Sexual Selection

Sexual Selection
Sexual Selection
Why Sex? PBS

iClicker Question
After 3.8 Billion Years of

Evolution, Organisms are:
A. Designed for Current Environment
B. Optimally Designed
C. Designed to be Just Good Enough
D. Poorly Designed - 99% Extinct
Challenges of Bioinspired Design
Nature's no ideal
"What a book a devil's

chaplain might write on the
clumsy, wasteful, blundering,
low, and horribly cruel works
of nature!"
Charles Darwin
But…
From Vogel
Bio-inspired Approach Challenging
Unlimited Opportunity for
Innovation
Nature's technology represents the only

known alternative to our own.
Looking at Nature's designs liberates us
from the constraints of our own habits,
history, and outlook.
After Vogel

Constraints: Robert J. Full

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Constraints: Robert J. Full

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Bioinspired Design

Team #6 Connection Team #8 Connection

Like Individual Connection

Team #17 Connection Team #24 Connection

BioDiscovery How to discover Nature’s principles?

BioDesign How do I design from Nature?

BioConstraints How are Nature’s designs

BioSelection How do I select the best inspiration?

BioScaling How do I consider size?

BioComplexity How to simplify & extract principles?

Solution Driven Behaviors

Table Structural Components

Operating Environment Operating Environment

compromises Functional Mechanisms

Performance Criteria Performance Criteria

"There is nothing to invent that is not already

"…the utter technological superiority of

"Ninety-nine percent of all species that existed on earth are

After 3.8 Billion Years of

reptiles, birds, sharks, camels, polar

Evolution “just good enough”

2: the fact or character attributed to nature or natural

Organisms are Not Optimally

2. Functional Constraint - Multi-functionality

3. Historical Constraint - Modify Ancestor

4. Sexual Selection - Adaptive Solution to

Adults lost ability to fly.

Organisms Must Grow

Similar bones in all Bat

Can’t be Optimal for

Similarity a result of Bird

history Sea lion

Legacy Neural Circuits

300 million years ago ancestors activated all segments to move.

Dumont & Robertson, 1986

Wedel, M.J. 2012. A monument of inefficiency: The

Clark, C.J. and R. Dudley. (2009) Sexual Selection

Why Sex? PBS

After 3.8 Billion Years of

"What a book a devil's

Nature's technology represents the only

You might also like

Solution Driven Behaviors 

Table Structural Components 

Operating Environment  Operating Environment 

compromises Functional Mechanisms 

Performance Criteria  Performance Criteria 