Natural materials usually have excellent performance for their special structures. Learning from the nature may catalyze the creation of artificial composites with unprecedented performance and functionalities. To realize this bio-inspired design idea on nano-carbon reinforced metal matrix composites, it is indispensable to understand and quantify the design principles of natural materials and consider the inherent characteristics of artificial materials and conditions of engineering applications. In this paper, recent researches of the bio-inspired nano-carbon reinforced metal matrix composites are reviewed to highlight the scientific and technological questions to obtain the bio-inspired structure artificial composites. These include the fabrication methods for solving the dispersion problem of nano-carbon and achieving the bio-inspired structure, characterization of microstructure and properties of bio-inspired composites. The interface and reinforcement mechanisms are emphatically investigated and discussed, in this way to help unveil natural design principles and provide reference for the future research of bio-inspired composites.

天然材料通常因其特殊结构而具有出色的性能。向自然学习可以促进具有前所未有性能和功能的人造复合材料的产生。为了在纳米碳增强金属基复合材料上实现这种受生物启发的设计思想，了解和量化天然材料的设计原理并考虑人造材料的固有特性和工程应用条件是必不可少的。本文综述了生物启发的纳米碳增强金属基复合材料的最新研究，突出了获得生物启发的结构人工复合材料的科学技术问题。这些方法包括解决纳米碳分散问题并实现生物启发结构的制造方法，微结构表征和生物启发复合材料的性能。着重研究和讨论了界面和增强机制，以帮助揭示自然设计原理，并为生物启发的复合材料的未来研究提供参考。