Morphogenesis as a Collective Decision of Agents Competing for Limited Resource: a Plants Approach

Competition for limited resource is a common concept in many artificial and natural collective systems. In plants, the common resources -water, minerals and the products of photosynthesis - are a subject of competition for individual branches striving for growth. The competition is realized via a dynamic vascular system resulting in the dynamic morphology of the plant that is adapting to its environment. In this paper, a distributed morphogenesis algorithm inspired by the competition for limited resources in plants is described and is validated in directing the growth of a physical structure made out of braided modules. The effects of different parameters of the algorithm on the growth behavior of the structure are discussed analytically and similar effects are demonstrated in the physical system.