Decentralized manufacturing for biomimetics through cooperation of digitization and nanomaterial design

Abstract

The blooming development of biomimetics has demonstrated infinite possibilities in providing solutions for our technical or engineering problems. Therefore, it makes sense to develop an efficient manufacturing system for biomimetic products to transfer biological techniques to engineering. Compared with conventional manufacturing, the decentralized one assisted by additive manufacturing brings the production process closer to the customized requirement of end users due to the accompanying manufacturing freedom in terms of both architecture coding and functionality distribution. Decentralized manufacturing is implemented through firstly deconstructing and analyzing the organism and subsequently establishing the manufacturing scheme. In this minireview, we take a bird's-eye view on the latest progress of biomimetic manufacturing through a decentralized and reverse perspective right from the selected characteristics of natural organisms, and call for a cooperation of digitization design and nanomaterial design. With further synergetic development of biomimetics, nanomaterial science and digitization-assisted additive manufacturing technology, it is anticipated that the decentralized approach will provide a shortcut towards a high-efficiency manufacturing way for biomimetic products.