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Pollination is a crucial ecological process with far-reaching impacts on natural and agricultural systems. Approximately 85% of flowering plants depend on animal pollinators for successful reproduction. Over 75% of global food crops rely on pollinators, making them indispensable for sustaining human populations. Wind, water, insects, birds, bats, mammals, amphibians, and mollusks accomplish the pollination process. The design features of flowers and pollinators in angiosperms make the pollination process functionally effective and efficient. In this paper, we analyze the design aspects of the honeybee-enabled flower pollination process using the axiomatic design methodology. We tabulate functional requirements (FRs) of flower and honeybee components and map them onto nature-chosen design parameters (DPs). We apply the “independence axiom” of the axiomatic design methodology to identify couplings and to evaluate if the features of a flower and a honeybee form a good design (i.e., uncoupled design) or an underperforming design (i.e., coupled design). We also apply the axiomatic design methodology’s “information axiom” to assess the pollination process’s robustness and reliability. Through this exploration, we observed that the pollination process is not only a good design but also a robust design. This approach to assessing whether nature’s processes are good or bad designs can be valuable for biomimicry studies. This approach can also inform design considerations for bio-inspired innovations such as microrobots.

The design of the human ear is one of nature’s engineering marvels. This paper examines the merit of ear design using axiomatic design principles. The ear is the organ of both hearing and balance. A sensitive ear can hear frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The vestibular apparatus of the inner ear is responsible for the static and dynamic equilibrium of the human body. The ear is divided into the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, which play their respective functional roles in transforming sound energy into nerve impulses interpreted in the brain. The human ear has many modules, such as the pinna, auditory canal, eardrum, ossicles, eustachian tube, cochlea, semicircular canals, cochlear nerve, and vestibular nerve. Each of these modules has several subparts. This paper tabulates and maps the functional requirements (FRs) of these modules onto design parameters (DPs) that nature has already chosen. The “independence axiom” of the axiomatic design methodology is applied to analyze couplings and to evaluate if human ear design is a good design (i.e., uncoupled design) or a bad design (i.e., coupled design). The analysis revealed that the human ear is a perfect design because it is an uncoupled structure. It is not only a perfect design but also a low-cost design. The materials that are used to build the ear atom-by-atom are chiefly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, calcium, and nitrogen. The material cost is very negligible, which amounts to only a few of dollars. After a person has deceased, materials in the human system are upcycled by nature. We consider space requirements, materials cost, and upcyclability as “constraints” in the axiomatic design. In terms of performance, the human ear design is very impressive and serves as an inspiration for designing products in industrial environments.