The trade-off: a central concept for biomimetics

Biology is gradually yielding lessons and ideas for technology, but the resulting innovation is adventitious. Biology is also very complex: currently with no underlying analytical model and so cannot adequately be interrogated by technologists. A concept which can bridge this gap is the trade-off, which leads to speciation in biology and aspects of design and problem-solving in engineering. An ontology is described which uses biological organisms as case studies. Terms have been adapted from TRIZ (the Russian system for solving problems creatively) to define trade-offs and the factors by which they can be manipulated. As an example the ontology resolves the biological trade-off “speed-accuracy”, yielding factors for a biomimetic version of the trade-off. These are Feedback (e.g. error-correction), Dynamic Response (e.g. control of thresholds), Adaptation (e.g. ability to predict) and Consolidation (e.g. stochastic accumulation). Since much of evolution can be related to the resolution of trade-offs, it is expected that this ontology can also categorise aspects of natural selection. Multi-criteria analysis will allow more versatile numerical models to be developed.