The biomimetics centres the inauguration of the new academic year of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain
Dr. Antonio Bascones – Dr. Alfredo Rocafort
Arturo Romero, full academician of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain, addressed the theme “La bioinspiración como herramienta de la tecnología” (Bioinspiration as a tool of technology) during the inaugural speech of the 2018-2019 academic year of this institution, held in Madrid on October 17 under the presidency of Antonio Bascones and in the presence of more than 200 academicians and guests, among whom were the president of the Governing Board of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), Alfredo Rocafort; the full academician in both institutions Maria Àngels Calvo, and the elected academician of the RAED Aldo Olcese, in what was a sample of the close relationship maintained by the two Royal Academies.
Romero highlighted how, throughout history, nature has been a recurrent source of inspiration for the development of science and technology. It’s enough to appreciate the ingenuities of Leonardo da Vinci or the genesis of the theories of Isaac Newton. However, it was not until the 70s of the last century when the concept of biomimicry was introduced to define an innovation process based on the imitation of biological systems that today, when sustainability is an urgent necessity in the face of exhaustion and degradation of natural sources, takes on special significance.
“Collective intelligence is what makes bioinspired algorithms perfect candidates for finding solutions when there are non-deterministic problems in the fields of economics, commerce, engineering, industry or medicine -Romero said in his presentation-. Optimization algorithms by ant colony have been used in many fields and situations that can range from the calculation of routes of a transport fleet, planning of the flight schedules of the air personnel, manufacture of automobiles or dynamic optimization of chemical processes to the neural networks, optimization of numerical functions, fuzzy systems, image processing, systems control or artificial intelligence”.
The academician urged his colleagues to learn about the latest advances bio-inspired by their potential in numerous fields of science and technology. “The imitation and recreation of some characteristics of biological systems in inanimate or technological systems is a good strategy to solve many problems that arise in our societies, as the operation of the world created by human activities becomes similar to the functioning of the natural world will be our chances of staying in it”, he concluded.
Dr. Olcese – Dr. Bascones – Dr. Rocafort – Dra. Calvo
