Bio-inspired structural adhesion and friction for harsh-environments: From natural ingenuity to engineering

Escalating demands for adaptive interfacial control across harsh conditions, from deep-space microgravity to deep-sea hydrostatic pressure, have propelled bio-inspired structural adhesion/friction materials (SAFMs) into a transformative scientific frontier. Guided by nature's evolutionary masterstrokes: the gecko's hierarchical fibrillar architecture enabling anisotropic van der Waals adhesion and the octopus' muscular-hydrodynamic suction synergies-researchers have engineered interfaces with unprecedented environmental adaptability. Despite breakthroughs in robotics and biomedicine, synthetic SAFMs persistently lag biological counterparts in three dimensions: structural hierarchy fidelity, dynamic stability under cross-media disturbance, and adaptability to concurrent multi-environmental. Through a comparative analysis of biotic/abiotic mechanisms, we demonstrate how current state-of-the-art synthetic systems, often limited by single-environment optimization or manufacturing-compromised structural hierarchies, fail to match the robustness of natural systems. To overcome these barriers, we propose a co-design framework integrating: multiple mechanism synergy, multiple functional material networks, and bio-inspired fabrication technologies. By bridging these domains, the framework aims to realize multiple environmental adaptive bio-inspired adhesion/friction that transcend current application silos from space environments tolerant robotic for lunar exploration to self-adjusting biomedicine devices for health monitoring.