Related papers: Soil searching by an artificial root
Evolutionary algorithms offer great promise for the automatic design of robot bodies, tailoring them to specific environments or tasks. Most research is done on simplified models or virtual robots in physics simulators, which do not capture…
Artificial life aims to understand the fundamental principles of biological life by creating computational models that exhibit life-like properties. Although artificial life systems show promise for simulating biological evolution,…
We explore a systematic approach to studying the dynamics of evolving networks at a coarse-grained, system level. We emphasize the importance of finding good observables (network properties) in terms of which coarse grained models can be…
In this paper we consider the problem of finding an evolution of a dynamical system that originates and terminates in given sets of states. However, if such an evolution exists then it is usually not unique. We investigate this problem and…
This paper presents a new type of genetic algorithm for the set covering problem. It differs from previous evolutionary approaches first because it is an indirect algorithm, i.e. the actual solutions are found by an external decoder…
Evolution Strategies are inspired in biology and part of a larger research field known as Evolutionary Algorithms. Those strategies perform a random search in the space of admissible functions, aiming to optimize some given objective…
Plant root growth is dramatically reduced in compacted soils, affecting the growth of the whole plant. Through a model experiment coupling force and kinematics measurements, we probed the force-growth relationship of a primary root…
Backtracking line search is foundational in numerical optimization. The basic idea is to adjust the step-size of an algorithm by a constant factor until some chosen criterion (e.g. Armijo, Descent Lemma) is satisfied. We propose a novel way…
Phylogenetics is now fundamental in life sciences, providing insights into the earliest branches of life and the origins and spread of epidemics. However, finding suitable phylogenies from the vast space of possible trees remains…
Tree roots can support and transmit nutrients for trees healthy growth aboveground, which greatly improve trees productivity and have significant effect on maintaining the normal operation of ecosystem. In order to map the tree roots more…
We discuss possible designs and prototypes of computing systems that could be based on morphological development of roots, interaction of roots, and analog electrical computation with plants, and plant-derived electronic components. In…
The paper studies a PDE model for the growth of a tree stem or a vine, having the form of a differential inclusion with state constraints. The equations describe the elongation due to cell growth, and the response to gravity and to external…
The structure of an evolving network contains information about its past. Extracting this information efficiently, however, is, in general, a difficult challenge. We formulate a fast and efficient method to estimate the most likely history…
Decompositions of networks are useful not only for structural exploration. They also have implications and use in analysis and computational solution of processes (such as the Ising model, percolation, SIR model) running on a given network.…
We model evolution of plants in a world, made up of different locations, with multiple environments (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subsets of locations). Each environment (landmass) has temperature, rainfall, and other…
Plants are dynamic systems that are integral to our existence and survival. Plants face environment changes and adapt over time to their surrounding conditions. We argue that plant responses to an environmental stimulus are a good example…
The albatross optimized flight maneuver -- known as dynamic soaring -- is nothing but a wonder of biology, physics, and engineering. By utilizing dynamic soaring, the bird can travel in the desired flight direction almost for free by…
We describe a challenging robotics deployment in a complex ecosystem to monitor a rich plant community. The study site is dominated by dynamic grassland vegetation and is thus visually ambiguous and liable to drastic appearance change over…
The root is an important organ of a plant since it is responsible for water and nutrient uptake. Analyzing and modelling variabilities in the geometry and topology of roots can help in assessing the plant's health, understanding its growth…
This paper proposes a new numerical optimization algorithm inspired by the strawberry plant for solving complicated engineering problems. Plants like strawberry develop both runners and roots for propagation and search for water resources…