A team from Georgia Tech’s Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID) has been awarded $768,000 from the National Science Foundation for their efforts to develop an interactive design representation system and computer database of biologically-inspired designs.

Lead by Ashok Goel and Spencer Rugaber (Interactive Computing), this interdisciplinary team composed of biologists (Jeannette Yen, Marc Weissburg) and engineers (Bert Bras, Craig Tovey) will build a interactive computer tool that will (1) develop a computational model of creative analogies in biologically inspired engineering design, (2) build an interactive environment for enhancing analogy based design innovations , and (3) provide a repository of functionally-represented designs of biological systems at all levels. The core of this tool consists of an interactive interface that allows users to represent the functions of biological systems in terms of the parts of their systems and how they interact to achieve their function. Users will be able to sort the database of entries in terms of biological functions, the biological structures, and the physical interactions governing the behavior the system. This allows engineers, designers, architects and biologists a common environment in which to understand biological principles and how they might apply to problems in human design by seeking analogies between natural functions and engineering or design problems. Because the use of analogies is a fundamental aspect of creativity, this interactive environment will contribute to enhancing conceptual design in all engineering domains, as well as specifically enabling biologically inspired design. Further, the environment will provide a knowledge representation language for depicting knowledge of biological systems in general. This award further integrates the teaching and research aspects of BID and provides a unique tool for enhancing interdisciplinary collaborations between biologists, engineers and designers.