But look at nature and you’ll see nothing but materials that adapt and change as the situation requires. Plants can turn toward the sunlight; animals can react to heat, pain or hunger; and both plants and animals have the ability to heal themselves when injured.

The current generation of smart materials focuses on embedding sensors into already existing materials. For instance, pressure sensors in a car tire can provide data to improve fuel economy and reduce wear. Such self-monitoring also reduces the need for and cost of human inspection. Similar sensors are also starting to be used in bridges, buildings and any other structure that experiences wear and fatigue over time.

The field of biomimetics tries to extract engineering design ideas from the properties of biological materials and structures. After all, nature’s mechanical processes have been perfected through millions of years of evolution. The man-made world of the future will look more like the natural world that already surrounds us. The next generation of "smart" materials will be able to sense their environment, process the information, and respond to it like living things.

Biomimetic Products Inc. is a company in New Mexico that designs and manufactures smart materials, made from polymers and polymer-metal composites, which can respond to external stimuli. They call them Artificial Muscles, and their main product is MuscleSheet.

MuscleSheet is a "responsive electroactive membrane composite" that bends mechanically when low voltages are applied. It can also be used as a sensor to generate low voltage when mechanically strained. One of Biomimetics’ dreams for this material is that it will be used to make propulsion fins for surface and underwater vehicles. The U.S. Navy is looking into making submarines that move by using the same swimming motion as a fish. (Whether joyriding submariners will have better luck avoiding civilian vessels with these "fish boats" is another matter…)

The next step in the smartening of man-made materials, and the great challenge for a fledgling biomimetics industry will be to give them the ability to adapt to expected and unexpected forces. This would mean the ability to change shape or position "intelligently," or to counteract vibration or other stresses. Another Biomimetics product called SmartFins could someday be used to make an airplane wing that changes shape for optimum performance under the very different conditions of takeoff, cruising and landing.

Companies like Biomimetics Products Inc. present a compelling alternate vision of the future. In this future, robots are powered by muscles instead of motors, and antennas bend toward a signal like a flower to the sun. It’s much more organic, and instead of a cold mechanized world of glass and steel, we could very well find ourselves surrounded by machines that look and act more and more like us.

Biomimetic Products, Inc., P.O. Box 1550, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1550; Tel: (505) 286-5240; Fax: (505) 286-5818; Email: inquiry@biomimetic.com; website: www.biomimetic.com