Modeling vegetable fractals by means of fractional-order equations

This paper characterizes four ‘fractal vegetables’: (i) cauliflower ( brassica oleracea var. Botrytis); (ii) broccoli ( brassica oleracea var. italica); (iii) round cabbage ( brassica oleracea var. capitata) and (iv) Brussels sprout ( brassica oleracea var. gemmifera), by means of electrical impedance spectroscopy and fractional calculus tools. Experimental data is approximated using fractional-order models and the corresponding parameters are determined with a genetic algorithm. The Havriliak-Negami five-parameter model fits well into the data, demonstrating that classical formulae can constitute simple and reliable models to characterize biological structures.