CAREER: Resilient Engineering Systems Design Via Early-Stage Bio-Inspiration

Resilience is critical for engineering systems, but comprehensive methods and widely accepted guidelines tailored specifically for incorporating resilience in the early stages of system design are lacking. This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award supports research which aims to address these gaps by working at the intersection of bio-inspired design, systems engineering, and engineering design to establish quantitative tools for addressing system resilience when minimal information is available.

Biological ecosystem characteristics will be investigated for their ability to guide system designers in the early design stages towards better response and recovery, including situations involving targeted and/or random disturbances. Ultimately, the project will develop knowledge and methods to ensure that human systems can withstand disturbances – especially important for the critical infrastructure systems that supply our water, power, or medicines – by safeguarding against potential failures and costly downtime.

Collaborative feedback from ecologists, industry, and academic experts will ensure that the interdisciplinary work maintains each domain’s critical features. Additional deliverables from this project include a “Walk Like an Engineer” program, which engages participants of all ages and abilities in engineering inspiration scavenger hunts through local parks, led by both a bio-inspired engineering design expert and a Nature Center host.

The themed nature walks, which will focus on topics such as ‘Nature’s Systems’ and ‘Nature’s Resilience’, will encourage participants to see themselves as design engineers learning from nature. The program will advance the United States future workforce by nurturing interdisciplinary communication skills and early interest and excitement in STEM-based design, while also teaching the public about nature and engineering in a connected manner.

This project supports the long-term goal of enhancing the early integration of resilience into the system design process, allowing designers to make proactive choices to create more sustainable and resilient systems that can withstand disruptions and recover effectively. The research objectives of this project are to provide quantitative tools for assessment of biological inspiration in engineering system design, extend the use of effective bio-inspiration into system recovery, and formulate practical design tools for achieving system resilience from biological ecosystem principles found to be effective.

Ecological Network Analysis will provide a quantitative method for extracting desirable traits from resilient biological ecosystems (e.g., food webs) and applying them to human engineered systems. Of interest is how these traits can improve a system’s robustness and recovery, which will be tested using a variety of case study types and criticality levels, including supply chains, water distribution networks, power grids, and industrial resource networks.

The most beneficial biological systems traits will be further investigated to generate fundamental engineering principles, such as the impact of topology versus weights on nature’s systems characteristics. A study of targeted versus random disturbances will provide additional insight into where these biological systems characteristics have the most value for engineering designers seeking system-level resilience.

The project’s research objectives are integrated and enhanced by the project’s educational objectives: to create and foster engineering excitement before students typically self-exclude from STEM; teach the public about how nature and engineering can be connected; and create STEM access for and inclusion of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Evaluation of the educational outreach activities will also provide important documentation for the use of nature to increase interest in engineering at all ages, as well as in underrepresented and underserved groups.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.