Biomimetic Design and Techniques for Space Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Bioinspired engineering has become increasingly popular over the last decade or more, whereby biological organisms have inspired engineering solutions to human problems. Biological organisms are crafted through evolution by natural selection, permitting solutions that are inherently different from those designed through rational engineering processes. Bioinspiration however does not imply blind aping of biology but requires the human engineer to abstract biological solutions in form suitable to the engineered application. For space application, we must abstract biological principles from terrestrial biology that evolved on Earth and apply them to alien environments for which no extraterrestrial organisms exist as models. The space environment, and planetary environments in particular, offer a diverse variety of physical conditions that are challenging to the engineer and require considerable ingenuity of design in our exploration machines. Nature potentially offers lessons that can be applied to engineering of spacecraft, landers, rovers, submersible, aircraft and other vehicles for exploring beyond Earth. This Special Issue on “Biomimetic Design and Techniques for Space Application” seeks to bring together a snapshot of state-of-the-art biomimetic approaches to all aspects of space mission analysis and design including biomimetic applications to space robotics. We envisage that providing open access will offer a wide readership with a broad exposure to biomimetics in challenging environments that will spur further growth in biomimetics in providing innovative solutions to the difficult problems encountered in spaceflight. We invite submissions across the broadest spectrum of bioinspiration applied to space exploration.

Dr. Alex Ellery
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomimetics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.