BIONICS (from Greek. bion - element of life, letters.- living), a science bordering between biology and technology, solving engineering problems based on the analysis of the structure and vital activity of organisms. B. is closely related to biology, physics, chemistry, cybernetics and engineering sciences - electronics, navigation, communications, marine business, etc.
The idea of applying knowledge about wildlife to solve engineering problems belongs to Leonardo da Vinci, who tried to build an aircraft with flapping wings like birds-an ornithopter. The emergence of cybernetics, which considers the general principles of control and communication in living organisms and machines, has become an incentive for a broader study of the structure and functions of living systems in order to clarify their commonality with technology. systems, as well as using the information obtained about living organisms to create new devices, mechanisms, materials, etc. In 1960, the first symposium on B. was held in Dayton (USA), which officially cemented the birth of a new science.
The main areas of work on B. cover the following problems: the study of the nervous system of humans and animals and the modeling of nerve cells - neurons - and neural networks for further improvement of computing, technology and the development of new elements and devices of automation and telemechanics (n e y r o b and o n i k a); the study of sensory organs, etc. sensing systems of living organisms in order to develop new sensors and detection systems; study the principles of orientation, location and navigation in various animals for the use of these principles in technology; the study of morphological, physiological, biochemistry. features of living organisms for the advancement of new techniques. and scientific ideas.
Studies of the nervous system have shown that it has a number of important and valuable features and advantages over all the most modern ones. will calculate by devices. These features, the study of which is very important for further improvement of electronic computing. systems, the following: 1) A very perfect and flexible perception of external information, regardless of the form in which it comes (for example, from handwriting, font, text color, drawings, timbre, etc. features of the voice, etc.). 2) High reliability, significantly exceeding the reliability of the technical. systems (the latter fail when there is a break in the circuit of one or more. details; with the death of millions of nerve cells out of billions that make up the brain, the system remains operational). 3) Miniaturization of the elements of the nervous system: with the number of elements 1010 - 1011, the volume of the human brain is 1.5 dm3. A transistor device with the same number of elements would occupy a volume of several. hundreds, or even thousands of m3. 4) Efficiency of work: the energy consumption of the human brain does not exceed several times. tens of watts. 5) A high degree of self-organization of the nervous system, rapid adaptation to new situations, to changes in activity programs.
Attempts to model the nervous system of humans and animals were started with the construction of analogs of neurons and their networks. Various types of arts, neurons have been developed (Fig. 1). Arts have been created. "neural networks" capable of self-organization, i.e. returning to stable states when they are out of balance. The study of memory, etc. properties of the nervous system - the main way to create "thinking" machines for automating complex production and management processes. The study of the mechanisms that ensure the reliability of the nervous system is very important for technology, because the solution of this primary technical problem will provide the key to ensuring the reliability of a number of technical systems (for example, aircraft equipment containing 105 electronic elements).
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of a neuron (left), its model (in the middle) and an electrical diagram of an artificial neuron (right): 1-cell body; 2 - dendrites; 3-axon; 4-collaterals; 5- axon terminal branching; Rp, Pi, P2, P1 - neuron inputs; Sn, S1, S2, S1 - synaptic contacts; P - output signal; K - signal threshold value; R1 - R6, Rm - resistances; C1-C3 Cm - capacitors; T1 - T3 - transistors; D - diode.
Research of analyzer systems. Each analyzer of animals and humans, perceiving various stimuli (light, sound, etc.), consists of a receptor (or sensory organ), conducting pathways and a brain center. These are very complex and sensitive formations that have no equal among technicians. devices. Miniature and reliable sensors that are not inferior in sensitivity, for example, to the eye, which reacts to single quanta of light, to the thermosensitive rattlesnake organ, which distinguishes changes in temperature in 0.001 ° C, or electricity. a fish organ that perceives potentials in fractions of a microvolt could significantly accelerate the progress of technological progress and scientific research.
Through the most important analyzer - the visual one - most of the information enters the human brain. From an engineering point of view, the following features of the visual analyzer are interesting: a wide range of sensitivity - from single quanta to intense light streams; a change in the clarity of vision from the center to the periphery; continuous tracking of moving objects; adaptation to a static image (for viewing a stationary object, the eye makes small fluctuations. movements with a frequency of 1-150 hz). For technical purposes, the development of the retina is of interest. (The retina is a very complex formation; for example, the human eye has 108 photoreceptors, which are connected to the brain by 106 ganglion cells.) One of the variants of the artificial retina (similar to the retina of the frog's eye) consists of 3 layers: the first includes 1800 photoreceptor cells, the second - "neurons" that perceive positive and inhibitory signals from photoreceptors and determine the contrast of the image; in the third layer there are 650 "cells" of five different types. These studies make it possible to create automatic recognition tracking devices. The study of the feeling of the depth of space when seeing with one eye (monocular vision) made it possible to create a determinant of the depth of space for the analysis of aerial photographs.
Work is underway to simulate the human and animal auditory analyzer. This analyzer is also very sensitive - people with acute hearing perceive sound when the pressure in the ear canal fluctuates about 10 microns/m2 (0.0001 din/cm2). It is also technically interesting to study the mechanism of information transmission from the ear to the auditory region of the brain. They study the organs of smell of animals in order to create an "artificial nose" - an electronic device for analyzing small concentrations of odorous substances in the air or water [some fish feel the concentration of the substance in several. mg/m3 (mcg/l)]. Mn. organisms have such analyzer systems that humans do not have. So, for example, a grasshopper on the 12th segment of the antennae has a tubercle that perceives infrared radiation, sharks and rays have channels on the head and in the front part of the trunk that perceive changes in temperature by 0.1 ° C. Snails and ants are sensitive to radioactive radiation. Fish, apparently, perceive stray currents caused by the electrification of the air (this is evidenced by the departure of fish to a depth before a thunderstorm). Mosquitoes move along closed routes within an artificial magnetic field. Some animals feel infra- and ultrasonic vibrations well. Some jellyfish react to infrasound vibrations that occur before a storm. Bats emit ultrasonic vibrations in the range of 45-90 khz, while moths, which they feed on, have organs sensitive to these waves. Owls also have an "ultrasound receiver" for detecting bats.
Promising, probably, the device is not only technical. analogs of animal sensory organs, but also technical. systems with biological. sensitive elements (e.g. bee eyes for detecting ultraviolet rays and cockroach eyes for detecting infrared rays). Great importance in technical. the so-called perceptrons - "self-learning" systems that perform logical functions of identification and classification - have been designed. They correspond to the think tanks where the received information is processed. Most studies are devoted to the recognition of visual, sound or other images, i.e. the formation of a signal or code that uniquely corresponds to the object. Recognition should be carried out regardless of changes in the image (e.g., its brightness, color, etc.) while maintaining its basic. values. Such self-organizing cognizing devices work without preliminary programming with gradual training carried out by a human operator; he presents images, signals errors, reinforces correct reactions. The input device of the perceptron is its perceiving, receptor field; when recognizing sees objects, it is a set of photocells.
After a period of "training", the perceptron can make its own decisions. Perceptrons are used to create devices for reading and recognizing text, drawings, analyzing waveforms, radiographs, etc.
Research of detection, navigation and orientation systems in birds, fish, etc. animals are also one of the important tasks of B., because miniature and accurate perceiving and analyzing systems that help animals navigate, find prey, and migrate thousands of kilometers (see Animal migrations) can help in improving devices used in aviation, marine, etc. Ultrasonic location was found in bats, a number of marine animals (fish, dolphins). It is known that sea turtles swim away into the sea for several days. thousands of kilometers and always return to the same place on the shore for laying eggs. It is believed that they have two systems: long-range orientation by stars and short-range orientation by smell (chemistry of coastal waters). The male butterfly small nocturnal peacock 's eye searches for a female at a distance of up to 10 km. Bees and wasps are well oriented by the sun. The study of these numerous and diverse detection systems can give a lot to technology.
