Michal Latacz is a young Mechanical Engineer from Cracow, Poland. Michal sees Nature as a huge bank of ideas and a source of inspiration to innovate. Natural evolution across million years has produced things that we should study to see whether we could use them to improve our own technology, he says.  Our own technology is a few thousand years old, maximum, so we should observe Nature, we should learn from Nature, he adds. And Michal observed Nature, in particular fishes such as rays and mollusks such as squids or calmars. And he found out something that Nature invented, a special proportion that all animals use, he says.

While still a student, Michal based a new, revolutionary vessel propulsion system on his observations and this special proportion. Using CATIA V5, he did no less than eleven virtual mock-ups before he was satisfied and felt that he could build a demonstrator to show his invention live. The Kalmar vessel was born and proved to work right away thanks to the realistic simulation features available in CATIA.

The main advantages of the system on traditional propulsion systems are silence and a very promissing output. A real eco-design intiative  with an outstanding energetic efficiency which proves Michal was right about Nature as a great source of inspiration. His invention was awarded a Gold Medal with mention at the 2007 Eureka innovation contest in Brussels. Already an accomplished CATIA V5 user, Michal Latacz is entering Passion for Innovation to optimize and industrialize his propelling solution using the full range of Dassault Systèmes solutions, including SIMULIA.

Delta Prototypes, the structure he has created to develop his invention, will no doubt get a big boost  joining the Passion for Innovation Program and we're happy to welcome and help him to take up new challenges.