Engineers are supposed to design new machines and systems. For that they go deeper into the subject and come up with better designs.  However, I feel they are limited by the knowledge of what exists in their design world.  If they understand life and the biological structures their horizon will expand manifold times and they can produce better inventions.  This is called the science of biomimicry or learning from nature.

Already lots of engineering designs around the world are using biomimicry for creating new materials, processes and inventions. However, these things are done by engineers and scientists after years of experience. If they are exposed to the fundamentals of biological designs early on in their studies and careers, then those efforts can become better and faster.

I have always believed that nature has all the answers.  This idea took hold of me during my students days in U.S. in the early 1970s.

Nature has all the answers

I was working on thermal applications of solar energy for my Ph.D. and felt that the solar collectors will increase their utility and efficiency if they follow the sun.  Thus, a curiosity arose on what systems in nature follow the sun. This led me to study how sunflower tracks the sun which eventually led me to some very interesting studies on the nature of fluid mechanics in natural systems such as how water in trees is transported to the height of 50-100 m, or how Venus flycatcher works, etc.

Similarly in our lab in the U.S., we wanted to develop a better pyranometer for measuring solar energy. A chance reading of how rattle snake’s pits on the side of their head are extremely efficient infrared (IR) receptors for  tracking warm prey showed me a possible design strategy and how nature does this efficiently.

Similarly, the conversion of chemical energy into mechanical movement via the human muscles reinforced my feeling that nature has all the answers and is far more evolved than us in its design strategies. All our present technologies for producing mechanical power are based on thermal energy conversion by internal combustion (IC) engines or electric motors running on electricity which is again produced by power plants running at high temperatures.

Nature does the conversion more efficiently and at room temperatures. Thus, solar energy is converted via photosynthesis into food (chemicals) which is used directly by animals and humans to produce mechanical energy via the muscles.

These ideas led me to set up interdisciplinary seminars in the University of Florida (UF) on the theme of biomimicry which was a completely new subject even in the U.S. in the late 1970s.  In these seminars I invited distinguished faculty from different departments at UF to talk on how nature converts one form of energy into another with minimum steps and at room temperature and what can we learn from these processes.

Cross-pollination of Ideas

Now with some more knowledge and passage of time, realization has come that biological life is the crystallization of all the forces in nature and part of the whole evolutionary process.

Since our minds are of the same time frame as the universe it can be conjectured that we cannot think more about anything than what already exists. Thus, the nature and life forms are the marvels of engineering and the best thing we can do is to understand them and copy them.  They have millions of years of headstart over us in design evolution.    

I therefore feel that all the engineering students should be grounded in the principles of understanding and duplicating living systems and processes. This requires that engineers should study biology and biological processes.

More and more engineering colleges in India, for example, are offering medical courses and degrees. These are being done to attract more students to these colleges for financial gain rather than any great scholarship. However, there is a hope that cross-pollination of ideas between medical and engineering fraternity on the same campus will help in design engineering via the biomimicry route. Only time can tell whether this will happen or not. However, in US universities this cross-pollination is quite the norm. 

Understanding Biological Life 

It is also my firm belief that our technological advancements will happen when we understand biological life, especially the human body – about which we hardly know very much.  In fact, anything in engineering can be learnt by understanding the human body or life. 

At present all our robots and AI machines, etc. are being designed based upon the human body design.  We are still struggling to design our computers and processors more efficiently, but they can never come any closer to the brain and human thought. The AI priests feel otherwise, and they say that it is a matter of time before AI will overtake humans in thinking process, but I have strong doubts about it and feel that the great new inventions and out of box thinking can only come from human minds and not through AI.

Engineering Education Modeled on Medical Education

People who graduate from basic medical courses (MBBS) are trained to treat patients and have a general knowledge about basic human anatomy and what can be done to treat sickness. Specialization in the medical field in different areas is normally obtained during a master's course.

Contrast this to the present engineering education in India which is woefully inadequate.  Most of the curriculum is focused on learning the detailed mathematical framework of the engineering design rather than the hands-on engineering application with the result that a fresh engineering graduate is totally unfit to be called an engineer.

In the past we had in our Institute quite a few mechanical engineering graduates from prestigious engineering colleges as interns and engineers. Some of them hardly knew the difference between a plier and a screwdriver. They never learnt any engineering – just passed exams.

I therefore personally feel engineering education should be tailored like medical education where  students learn real engineering on how to do things with their hands. Together with this they should also be taught some elements of basic engineering fundamentals as applied to designing the machines. Understanding of biology will help this learning further.    

(The writer, an IIT and US-educated Indian spiritual engineer and rural development pioneer,  a 2022 Padma Shri award winner, is the Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Phaltan, Maharashtra.  He can be reached at anilrajvanshi50@gmail.com/@anilraj24.bsky.social)