The Bionic Car project

And finally, it must also be highly manoeuvrable as it needs to move in the confined spaces of coral reefs in its search for food. Accordingly, researchers soon began to view the boxfish quite differently, and realise there was far more to its raw-boned design than initially meets the eye: despite its angular body, it is an excellent swimmer whose cube-shaped structure is by no means a hindrance.

On the contrary, the boxfish possesses unique characteristics and is a prime example of the ingenious inventions developed by nature over millions of years of evolution.

The basic principle of this evolution is that nothing is superfluous and each part of the body has a purpose – sometimes several purposes.

The outer skin of the boxfish consists of numerous bony, hexagonal plates that are interlinked to form a rigid “suit of armour”. This bony, armour-plated structure gives the body of the fish great rigidity, protects it from injury and is also the secret of its outstanding manoeuvrability, as tiny vortices form along the edges on the upper and lower parts of the body to stabilise the fish in any position and ensure that it remains safely on course even in areas of great turbulence.

It does not need to move its fins in the process, and can therefore conserve its strength. Applied to automotive engineering, the boxfish is therefore an ideal example of rigidity and aerodynamics.

Moreover, its rectangular anatomy is practically identical to the cross-section of a car body. And so the boxfish became the modelfor a so far unique automotive development project.

The aerodynamic boxfish

The first sub-project tackled by the engineers at the Mercedes-Benz Technology Centre and DaimlerChrysler Research concerned aerodynamics.

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