Fields of application of bionics
Contenido
Las aplicaciones son inmensas y no están solo limitadas a ampliar nuestras capacidades sensoriales.[1] A continuación se listan algunos campos de aplicación de la biónica.[8][6] Todas tienen en común la inspiración en diseños de la naturaleza, animales, vegetales, sus estructuras y sus mecanismos de adaptación al entorno saludable.[9].
Medicine
In medicine, bionics means the replacement or enhancement of organs or other parts of the body with mechanical versions. Bionic implants differ from mere prostheses by closely mimicking the original function, or even surpassing it.
Using the concept of bionics in sport, and in general in the study of the functioning of the human body, it has been possible to create computerized simulators and analyzers of the techniques of high-performance athletes that allow computational and statistical analysis of the movement of the human body in different situations.[10] This makes it possible to evaluate the areas of opportunity for improvement in their functional techniques, either to correctly focus training, as well as to use this knowledge in the design of prostheses, for example for people who have lost an arm or a leg, such as the engineer and biophysicist Hugh Herr.[1] The field of bioengineering applied to the human body is developing different improvements, also highlighting the so-called bionic ear,[2] presented in 2017 at the Royal European Academy of Doctors.
Architecture
In the field of architecture, the concept of bionics was incorporated at the end of the century. An interdisciplinary team in which architects, urban planners, engineers and biologists participate, develop the idea of a new way of occupying the territory with human settlements in synchrony with life.[11] The architect María Rosa Cervera Sardá, has written a multitude of books and articles in addition to carrying out architecture and urban planning projects[8] incorporating the bionic, with a sense that is aligned with sustainability.[3][4].
City
The bionic city can be considered in the aspects of urban design that use the adaptive knowledge of nature, together with the knowledge of human technology, to improve the habitat in which we live as a species, the city. Starting from the inventions and proposals of Leonardo da Vinci to improve aspects of infrastructure in the city of Florence, Milan[12] or Paris, we can understand the evolution of the bionic city, up to the current proposals.[13].
The bionic city is also called bioclimatic city, as designs from biology are adopted so that the city responds efficiently to the physical environment in which it is located. Thus we find proposals for both urban design[14] and urban planning in which air conditioning parameters are considered, such as the cooling system used in termite mounds by ants to adapt their habitat to the vital comfort they require.[15] In this sense, studies carried out on the concept of urban heat island are carried out in cities around the world, highlighting, for example, the study carried out for Madrid.[16][17] Since cities become large metropolises, with High densities of people, buildings and asphalt pavements that prevent water from maintaining its natural cycle, promote the accumulation of heat produced by this built environment.[18][19] These studies and decision-making are based on the use of sensors that measure the variation of parameters at different times of the day and seasons of the year, in different urban areas. Managing all this data collected by the sensors distributed throughout the city is possible through the use of technology, big data, neural networks and other computer information management systems. In addition, the impacts of other new technologies applied to urban construction are measured, such as the integration of renewable energies or ecological roofs.[20].
Audiovisual
Thanks to bionics, it has been possible to carry out acquisition, reproduction and compression systems within the audiovisual field, taking into account the limitations of the human auditory and visual systems.
A clear example within the world of acquisition are microphones, amplifiers, and speakers that have been designed according to the ranges audible to humans, that is, from 20 Hz to 20kHz.
As an audio compression system we find MP3, which allows sound to be stored at a quality similar to that of a CD and with a very high compression index, of the order of 1:11. The encoding system used by MP3 is a lossy compression algorithm, that is, the original sound and what we obtain are not identical. This is because MP3 takes advantage of the deficiencies of the human ear and eliminates all the information that it is not capable of perceiving.
Another compression system, in this case an image, is JPEG in which the compression is carried out, to a large extent, in chromaticism since the human visual system is much more sensitive to luminosity than to colors.
In the case of reproduction elements we can mention the case of the flat screens that are currently produced. Almost like all color tube televisions of the past, they have a 1:1:1 ratio of the three color elements of red, green and blue. However, since the blue subpixels do almost nothing for the eye when resolving images, most of these pixels are neglected. It must be said that this system has been improved over the years, making the screens more efficient.
Product design
Over the last decade, the designer's profession has increased considerably. If we look at the case of Leonardo Da Vinci, it seems evident that bionics would have to provide today's designer with this method of creativity, of verifying the validity of new constructions, a diversification of forms intended for precise functions.[21] The form-function relationship is, without a doubt, the aspect of bionics that the designer touches most particularly; and we want to refer to the fact that other aspects such as the psychochemical principles of the functioning of some sensory organs are not touched so closely. On the contrary, a multitude of biology works deal with the double aspect of the form-function relationship: it is the domain of functional morphology. Because of its often unexpected solutions, nature hides riches that designers would be very tempted to assimilate into their designs.[22].