Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (2005), 19, 113-132. Printed in the USA. Copyright @ 2005 Cambridge University Press 0890-0604/05 $16.00 DOl: 1O.1O17/S08900604050501O9 A functional representation for aiding biomimetic and artificial inspiration of new ideas AMARESH CHAKRABARTJ,l PRABIR SARKAR,I B. LEELAVATHAMMA,I ANDB.S. NATARAJU2 lCentre for Product Design and Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India 2Indian Space Research Organisation Satellite Centre, Bangalore 560017, India (RECEIVED July 1, 2004; ACCEPTED December 15, 2004) Abstract Inspiration is useful for exploration and discovery of new solution spaces. Systems in natural and artificial worlds and their functionality are seen as rich sources of inspiration for idea generation. However, unlike in the artificial domain where existing systems are often used for inspiration, those from the natural domain are rarely used in a systematic way for this purpose. Analogy is long regarded as a powerful means for inspiring novel idea generation. One aim of the work reported here is to initiate similar work in the area of systematic biomimetics for product development, so that inspiration from both natural and artificial worlds can be used systematically to help develop novel, analogical ideas for solving design problems. A generic model for representing causality of natural and artificial systems has been developed, and used to structure information in a database of systems from both the domains. These are implemented in a piece of software for automated analogical search of relevant ideas from the databases to solve a given problem. Preliminary experiments at validating the software indicate substantial potential for the approach. Keywords: Behavioral Language; Biomimicry; Design by Analogy; Idea Generation; Inspiration 1. INTRODUCTION Inspiration is useful for exploration and discovery of new solu- tion spaces (Murakami & Nakajima, 1997). This is also indi- cated by several pieces of research, for example, that presence of a stimulus can lead to more ideas being generated during problem solving (Kletke et al., 2001), that stimulus-rich cre- ativity techniques positively affect creativity (MacCrim- mon & Wagner, 1994), or from empirical evidence that individuals stimulated with association lists demonstrate more creative productivity than those without the stimuli (Wat- son, 1989). Both artifacts and systems in natural and artifi- cial worlds and their functionality are seen as rich sources of inspiration for idea generation. The importance of learning from nature is long recognized, and some attempts made by researchers like Vogel (1988) andPrench (1998) to learn from nature with product development in mind. However, unlike in the artificial domain where existing systems are routinely used for inspiration (such as in compendia, case-based rea- Reprint requests to: Amaresh Chakrabarti, Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India. E-mail: ac123@cpdm.iisc.efijet.in soning systems, etc.), those from the natural domain are rarely used in a systematic way for this purpose. Analogy has long been regarded as a powerful means for inspiring novel idea generation, as seen in several systems based on analogy (Bhatta et al., 1994; Qian & Gero, 1996), and creativity methods developed with the specific aim of fostering analogical reasoning (Gordon, 1961). One aim of the work reported in this paper is to initiate similar work in the area of Systematic Biomimetics for product develop- ment. The overall goal is to use inspiration from both nat- ural and artificial worlds to help develop novel ideas to solve design problems. The overall objective is to use ana- logical reasoning with a functional/behavioral language to get inspirations for ideas to a given design problem. 2. OBJECTIVE AND METHODOLOGY The specific objective of this work is to develop a computa- tional tool for supporting designers to generate novel solu- tions for product design problems by providing natural or artificially inspired/analogical ideas. The current applica- tion of focus is developing novel mechanisms. The particu- 113