Towards a roadmap for living machines

A roadmap is a plan that identifies short-term and long-term goals of a research area and suggests potential ways in which those goals can be met. This roadmap is based on collating answers from interview with experts in the field of biomimetics, and covers a broad range of specialties. Interviews were carried out at events organized by the Convergent Science Network, including a workshop on biomimetics and Living Machines 2012. We identified a number of areas of strategic importance, from biomimetic air and underwater vehicles, to robot designs based on animal bodies, to biomimetic technologies for sensing and perception. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.