Methodical and technical aspects of functional-structural plant modelling
by Michael Henke
Date of Examination:2017-03-13
Date of issue:2017-09-26
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Winfried Kurth
Referee:Prof. Dr. Winfried Kurth
Referee:Prof. Dr. Gerhard H. Buck-Sorlin
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Abstract
English
During the last decade, functional-structural plant models (FSPM) has become a more widely accepted paradigm and tool in life sciences. The increasing demand for FSPMs raised a number of new challenges, including the consideration of model reuse, model combination and comparison, and the enhancement of existing models. Current FSPMs are often developed intuitively, without a proper plan or standard. This necessitates the establishment of new methods of modelling. Functional-structural plant modelling is a highly complex process with many activities and sub-activities requiring skills and knowledge of different disciplines, each one of which still having a great potential for improvement. The aim of the present work is to provide support for the whole modelling workflow, by presenting efficient methods for data acquisition and techniques adapted from software engineering for FSPM (e.g., modularisation, prototyping, and model standard). After a short introduction, the second chapter gives an extensive overview of former and current approaches of plant modelling in general. The chapter closes with a discussion of several aspects of the whole plant modelling workflow. In the third and fourth chapter of this thesis, two new methods for data acquisition for plant modelling are developed, introduced and tested. The concept of modularisation and providing independent model components is discussed in chapter five. In the sixth chapter, a prototype for FSPM is introduced. Using techniques borrowed from software engineering that allow efficient model development an application of this model prototype is described in chapter seven. The eighth chapter describes how advanced light modelling techniques can be used within FSPM thereby providing new application fields for FSPM.
Keywords: functional-structural plant modelling; plant modelling; modularisation; data acquisition; data analysis; FSPM; GroIMP; model prototype