{"id":220964,"date":"2025-08-26T14:48:45","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T00:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=220964"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:48:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T00:48:45","slug":"bio-inspired-breakthroughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/26\/bio-inspired-breakthroughs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bio-inspired breakthroughs: Engineering solutions from nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_220966\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-220966\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/manoa-engineering-bioinspired-breakthroughs-tianlu-wang.jpg\" alt=\"person working on a large device\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-220966\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/manoa-engineering-bioinspired-breakthroughs-tianlu-wang.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/manoa-engineering-bioinspired-breakthroughs-tianlu-wang-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/manoa-engineering-bioinspired-breakthroughs-tianlu-wang-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-220966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assistant Professor Tianlu Wang working with a robot arm to wirelessly control magnetic soft robots in physiologically relevant conditions towards medical applications. (Photo credit: Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>From the fluid motion of fish and elegant propulsion of jellyfish, to the shape-adapting capabilities of an octopus, nature\u2019s creatures have remarkable bio-mechanical capabilities that can offer technical solutions to many of today\u2019s most complex challenges, according to University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Engineering<\/a> Assistant Professor Tianlu Wang.<\/p>\n<p>Wang\u2019s fundamental biomechanics research has allowed him to develop groundbreaking innovations&#8212;bio-inspired soft robots that can serve as cutting-edge tools in addressing persisting healthcare, sustainability and industrial challenges. By decoding how small aquatic animals move and function efficiently through hard-to-reach, fluid environments, Wang\u2019s tiny soft robots mimic these traits, enabling them to maneuver with similar grace and resilience through environments such as delicate underwater ecosystems or the human body.<\/p>\n<p>Related <em><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> News<\/em> stories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/11\/10\/microscopic-soft-robots-medical\/\">Team of microscopic soft robots could transform medical care<\/a>, November 10, 2024<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/02\/06\/robot-tech-to-clean-oceans\/\">Robot tech to clean oceans wows international summit<\/a>, February 6, 2024<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Biomechanical robots<\/h2>\n<p>More than 90&#37; of marine life is smaller than 10 centimeters, and their locomotion techniques are marvels of efficiency and adaptability. From larval zebrafish to jellyfish, these creatures display soft-bodied locomotion, large deformations and shape adaptations that Wang\u2019s lab research has captured and translated into robotic performance. By capturing wake flow patterns and studying fluid-structure interactions of these tiny creatures, Wang\u2019s team was able to mimic these biomechanical actions to improve propulsion, momentum and efficiency in robotic movement.<\/p>\n<p>One example is a robotic swimmer he created that emulates larval zebrafish by using a uniform stiffness distribution and an oscillating magnetic field to reproduce energy-efficient, silent swimming.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Such insights don\u2019t just make for better robots, they can help biologists understand the fundamental biomechanics of animal life, and hopefully inspire new collaborations between engineers and marine biologists to better understand and replicate these remarkable organisms to create solutions for everyday life,&rdquo; said Wang.<\/p>\n<p>For more on the marine conservation potential and innovation for island communities as a result of Wang\u2019s research, <a href=\"https:\/\/ovprimulti2dev.wpengine.com\/noelo\/bio-inspired-breakthroughs\/\">see this <em>Noelo<\/em> story<\/a>. <em>Noelo<\/em> is <abbr>UH<\/abbr>\u2019s research magazine from the <a href=\"https:\/\/research.hawaii.edu\/\">Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A <abbr>UH<\/abbr> engineer is turning the fluid movements of fish and jellyfish into innovative soft robots for healthcare, sustainability and industrial solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":220966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[179,182,1505,1467,1363,1496,158,9],"class_list":["post-220964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-engineering","tag-innovation","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-mechanical-engineering","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/manoa-engineering-bioinspired-breakthroughs-tianlu-wang.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220964"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220979,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220964\/revisions\/220979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}