Humans brag about being the only creatures on earth with advanced intelligence. They created civilization and developed science and technology while fighting against nature. Various technologies and inventions have made up for human shortcomings, but humans still face difficulties. During billions of years of evolution, living organisms have perfectly solved many problems through countless failures and sacrifices. Therefore, human beings should learn from nature and draw inspiration from it.
Insects evolved successfully as late as 400 million years ago. As of 2019, about 925,000 species of insects have been recorded in the world. Insects are the most diverse animals in the evolutionary history of life. They are found on all continents except Antarctica. Their combined weight exceeds that of all other animals (including humans) combined. They are the overlords of the land and have the power to change the face of the planet. Such a thriving community of creatures would, of course, be a teacher to humans, who are keeping pace with insect evolution, refining their technology and producing new inventions.
Sensory Bionics of Insects
The compound eye is the most important visual organ of insects. It consists of many small eyes. The small eyes are hexagonal in shape with overlapping edges forming a hexagonal array. The field of view of each small eye is small, but the field of view of a compound eye composed of many small eyes is large. Some insects have a horizontal field of view of up to 240 degrees and a vertical field of view of up to 360 degrees, while humans have a field of view of only 180 degrees. The compound eyes of insects are very sensitive to moving objects.
For example, the reaction time of a bee to a sudden appearance of an object is 0.01 seconds, compared to 0.05 seconds for humans. In addition, the compound eye system has good distance measurement and speed estimation. Since the visual system of insects can play a prominent role in the process of movement, it has become an important bionic object for modern flight equipment. As early as 1980, American scientists tried to apply the principle of insect compound eyes to the guidance research of air-to-surface missiles and established an engineering model. Currently, people tend to use it as a robot navigation system to improve the level of autonomous function of robots. Based on the compound eye principle, various speed and distance measuring instruments have been applied. Not only that, a flying eye camera that can take 1329 high-definition photos at the same time has been developed, which is widely used in military, medical, aerospace and other fields.
The tentacles of insects are olfactory organs, which also play the roles of taste and hearing in many insects. Insect tentacles have many hair-like receptors. They sense stimuli from the environment and convert these stimuli into nerve signals that are transmitted to the brain. For example, bees have 3,000-30,000 olfactory receptors on their antennae, while some moths have even more. They can even respond to surrounding gas molecules.
Another example is that male mosquitoes find their mates by the frequency of the female's flight sounds. Even when they are tens of meters apart and surrounded by thunderous noise, they can still find their target accurately.
This sensitivity and resistance to interference is amazing. At present, bionics in this field has achieved some results, such as the fly-like olfactory device made of high-sensitivity gas analyzer, has been used in the spacecraft cockpit gas composition analysis. In addition, various olfactory sensors with similar principles have been used in mine gas monitoring and fire alarms.
Insect morphology and structural bionics
Many people feel pain when they are injected, but mosquitoes feel nothing when they suck blood. Research has shown that mosquitoes that don't bite have a very specialized mouthparts structure: when they suck blood, the sharp, serrated mouthparts slice through the skin like a delicate scalpel, and then push the needle inward to make only a small incision. Compared with smooth syringe needles, the serrated edge has a small contact area, reducing the irritation of one's nerves and alleviating pain. Japanese scientists have developed painless syringes to mimic the mouthparts of mosquitoes, but the syringes are prone to breakage, so further improvements are needed.
Insect feet are also interesting. They show good adsorption and climbing ability. Some insects can resist pressures of more than 100 times their own weight on smooth surfaces and can walk freely on these surfaces! The soles of insects' feet are very complex. Some of them are setae (a thin, elongated hair on the surface of the insect, typically tens to hundreds of micrometers long and a few micrometers thick).
Some of them are retractable structures similar to suction cups. In addition, there is evidence that the soles of insects' feet absorb secretions to increase viscosity. Scientists hope to use this bionics to enhance the movement of robots. German researchers have developed a small wall-crawling robot with adsorbent feet that can walk on vertical walls and across uneven surfaces.
The "water rover" water dolphin is another fascinating insect because it can walk on water. Chinese scholars have pointed out in an article published in the journal Nature that there are thousands of setae arranged in the same direction on the otter's leg surfaces. These bristles have a special structure that generates a large surface tension, so it can walk on water. At present, the research and development of water walking robots based on bionic water walking robots has been carried out worldwide. It is believed that the emergence of water walking robots is only a matter of time.
Motion bionics of insects
There are now two kinds of airplanes: fixed-wing airplanes and rotor-wing airplanes (helicopters). Although people have realized the dream of flying, both types of aircraft are still very inflexible. Especially in the early fixed-wing airplanes, the wings would constantly vibrate during fast flight. Thanks to engineers who learned from dragonflies, they solved this problem by adding weight to the ends of the wings.
Birds and insects in nature fly more nimbly, flapping their wings! So people came up with a concept airplane: the flapping wing airplane, which could flap its wings like birds and insects. Scientists around the world have studied the flight movements of insects and birds for many years and have discovered some principles, but some of them are not very clear. At present, it is not realistic to develop a large manned wing-fluttering airplane, and there is no guarantee that the fuselage will not go up and down during the flight.
The main development project at present is a small unmanned flapping-wing flying robot. Nonetheless, it has the ability to fly more nimbly and faster than other flying robots, is more adaptable to bad weather and has better camouflage capabilities. It will play an important role in areas such as mapping and reconnaissance.
The lunar rovers and Mars rovers used for human space exploration are wheeled. However, wheeled rovers do not perform well. Their wheels sometimes got stuck in rocks and sometimes in loose sand, leaving monitors far from Earth with sweaty hands. At this point, some scholars interested in insects studied their legs. Insects have six legs, and although they walk quickly, they always have three legs that form a stable tripod on the ground. Biologists at the University of California scrutinized every detail of the insect's crawl and created a robotic insect.
Not only can it walk on rough roads, but it can remain stable even when knocked over, and even turn around when it rolls over. That's something wheeled robots can't match. This adaptability is better suited for exploration on uninhabited planets or the seabed. I'm sure they'll be useful soon.
Other specialized abilities of insects bionic
Many insects have their own unique skills that are worth learning. For example, luminescent insects such as fireflies can convert the energy in their bodies into light energy with an efficiency close to 100 percent. This is currently unattainable by ordinary lamps, the conversion rate of ordinary light bulbs is only 6%. Simulation of fireflies luminous cold light source efficiency is greatly improved.
Colonial animals like ants are busy every day. They throw away trash from their nests and bring food to their nests outside. The entire nest is like a logistics network. However, the network is not designed to coordinate traffic, but is organized and rarely crowded. By studying the movement of ants, scientists have developed a mathematical model of the "ant colony algorithm," which is used to direct traffic and logistics, greatly improving transportation efficiency.
The shell bug is a strange beetle that sprays hot, toxic liquid at its enemies. The study found that the two dangerous chemicals are stored in separate "tanks" and mixed when needed.
Once the two substances are mixed, they react rapidly with enzymes -- boiling and exploding. U.S. military experts have developed a very advanced binary chemical weapon that stores the chemicals in separate containers. Once the shell is fired, the diaphragm ruptures, and within seconds of the missile's flight, the mixture reacts and ultimately serves to kill the enemy. However, one hopes that bionics will serve the interests of humanity, not war.