Volume 5, Issue 36 April 2008
A Crucible for Biological Inspiration
CiBER founder and director Robert Full gains insights into the mechanics of animal locomotion from creatures ranging from cockroaches to geckos. Image: courtesy Berkeley NewsCenter
To enter the office of Robert Full is to meet a menagerie of animal-inspired robots and the creatures that inspired them. On one wall hangs a likeness of crablike Ariel, who can wade through surf and, if bowled over by a breaker, can right herself again. Behind another frame is a likeness of RHex, able to scuttle across hills and boulder fields on six springlike legs. From a third frame hangs the likeness of mechanical gecko named RiSE, which scales buildings and panes of glass on feet bristling with microscopic sticky hairs.
These marvelous machines were inspired by the discoveries of Full, a Berkeley professor of Integrative Biology, in his collaborations with engineers, mathematicians, and scientists from other fields. "As human technologies take on more of the characteristics of nature, nature becomes a more useful teacher," Full says.
Full attributes the development of his remarkable mechanical progeny to his cross-disciplinary partnerships. "We think science has to be interdisciplinary now to really be cutting edge," Full says. "The collective discoveries can go beyond what any one group could do. But you don't just throw people together and expect it to happen. The collaborations will break down."
CiBER encourages the study of animal motion by interdisciplinary teams of biologists, engineers and other scientists. The approach has already yielded an impressive array of climbing, running and wading robots such as RiSE, a climbing robot that clings to walls using technology based on gecko feet. Image: courtesy Robert Full
Full and UC Berkeley have launched a center expressly geared to encourage partnerships among biologists and scientists of different stripes. The Center for Interdisciplinary Bio-inspiration in Education and Research (CiBER) already counts more than two dozen faculty affiliates from seven departments. The center will teach biologists, engineers, and others how to reach across the professional table by focusing their joint energies on biomechanics-the study of how organisms work and move in their natural habitats. In the process, both students and participating professionals will learn how to develop groundbreaking new designs in the spirit of Ariel, RHex, and RiSE.
Some institutions are meeting the need for modern interdisciplinary research by training students in many fields at once. But this approach, Full argues, produces a jack of all trades and master of none. Instead, CiBER encourages an integrative model in which students amass expertise in a single area but also learn how to contribute to and benefit from projects involving experts in other fields.
"When I collaborate with someone from a different discipline, I'm actually teaching them a sufficient amount of biology and they're teaching me enough math or engineering to know what's of value and how to interact with them," says Full.
The mutual effort can pay big dividends in each team member's field of expertise. For example, Full sought the assistance of Princeton University mathematician Philip Holmes to describe how animals stabilize their bodies in motion. Holmes realized the problem was new to mathematics, and wrote several papers on the topic. Full used Holmes' new mathematical model as the basis of several experiments that, in turn, inspired more discoveries in mathematics by Holmes. "These breakthroughs couldn't have been created without that interaction. So everybody accelerates their own field by this kind of mutually beneficial relationship and then everybody wins."
Companies, too, are now interested in interdisciplinary cooperation. To that end, CiBER offers businesses the chance to become corporate affiliates. The financial support these companies provide will be used to improve CiBER facilities and training opportunities. Meanwhile, students with ideas that hold promise for the market will gain exposure to industry. Industry partners have the potential to hire these students as interns or employees to enhance their research and product development capabilities.
"We want to shape students who, when they leave Berkeley, will form interdisciplinary collaborations naturally in their own research programs," Full says, citing several former students who are now university professors. "We now know how to create these incredible individuals for the future."