Quorum Sensing Digital Simulations for the Emergence of Scalable and Cooperative Artificial Networks

Abstract

This article proposes digital simulations of a bacterial communication system termed quorum sensing, and investigates the design of artificial networks build on the behavior of bacteria societies that tweet using quorum sensing signals. To this end, this article proposes a cell-based model that uses a “bottom-up” agent-based model coupled with ordinary differential equations, and develops the abstraction of intracellular dynamics as a basis underlying cooperative artificial network formation. Results show the emergence of self-sustainable behaviors thanks to the proposed model of metabolism that permits bacteria to grow, reproduce, interact, and coordinate at the population level to exhibit near-perfect bioluminescence behaviors. Moreover, the evolution of cooperation in the subsequent artificial network leads to the emergence of non-predicted coercive strategies. Coercion has been shown to be beneficial to share common interests between variants of cooperators leading the entire population of cells to be networked.