On plant roots logical gates

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of plant roots as biological logical gates, demonstrating how their growth patterns can implement Boolean functions and proposing a design for a binary half-adder based on these biological gates.

Contribution

It introduces novel plant root-based logical gates and a binary half-adder design, advancing biological computing with morphological plant systems.

Findings

Two types of plant root logical gates are proposed.

Plant roots can represent Boolean variables through presence or absence.

A binary half-adder is designed using these plant root gates.

Abstract

Theoretical constructs of logical gates implemented with plant roots are morphological computing asynchronous devices. Values of Boolean variables are represented by plant roots. A presence of a plant root at a given site symbolises the logical {\sc True}, an absence the logical {\sc False}. Logical functions are calculated via interaction between roots. Two types of two-inputs-two-outputs gates are proposed: a gate $\langle x, y \rangle \rightarrow \langle xy, x+y \rangle$ where root apexes are guided by gravity and a gate $\langle x, y \rangle \rightarrow \langle \overline{x}y, x \rangle$ where root apexes are guided by humidity. We propose a design of binary half-adder based on the gates.