The plant factory is developing hotly. How to combine it with the Internet of Things technology?

The report from the United Nations Population Programme pointed out that the global population will exceed 9 billion in 2050. In the future, the energy scarcity crisis will cause energy crops and food crops to compete for land; the current “plant factory” at the highest stage of development of facility agriculture seems to be an advanced way to solve problems.

This article will briefly describe how the IoT can be applied to plant factories and add value to each other to become an emerging and innovative application.

The concept of the Internet of Things is not an emerging technology, but it has been applied in various fields. In recent years, there have been many successful IoT application cases, such as automated customs clearance, telemedicine, food safety or agricultural automation; bringing people a more convenient life and providing higher value services.

With the change of lifestyle and the continuous advancement of Internet of Things technology, it often brings more emerging application issues. This article will briefly describe how to apply the Internet of Things to plant factories, add value to each other and become an emerging innovative application, and explain the industrial advantages of developing plant factories in China.

How to introduce IoT technology into plant factories?

According to the research, the global population will exceed 9 billion in 2050; in the future, the energy scarcity crisis will cause energy crops and food crops to compete for land. Let the food crisis, which was originally formed because of population expansion, in the future, the global need to improve agricultural production capacity, reduce the use of harmful chemical pesticides, and reduce food consumption and waste. At the same time, the "plant factory" at the highest stage of development of facility agriculture seems to be It is an advanced way to solve problems.

How to apply the Internet of Things to plant factories and add value to each other will be an emerging and innovative application. The extent to which IoT technology is introduced into plant factories can be divided into three important phases:

1. The first stage - intelligent cultivation environment monitoring

The plant factory production environment includes light, CO2, culture fluid, etc. The composition of the relevant environment is closely related to the crop yield results; it contains many information integration, automation monitoring and regulation requirements. However, most of the cultivation environment in the past was mostly independent sensors, which required manual copying of records, such as: temperature and humidity, etc., and system monitoring without integration can be applied. If the individual sensors are integrated through the system and the changes in the factors of each cultivation environment are monitored by the concept of the Internet of Things, it is possible to manage more effectively, save costs and respond quickly to cultivation needs.

2, the second phase - cloud service platform

In addition to the cultivation environment monitoring, different cultivated crops are suitable for different planting formulas and growing environments. Whenever a research unit develops an emerging crop cultivation formula, how can it quickly provide opportunities for operators in the market to start producing, that is, to provide emerging services.

At present, through the cloud service platform concept, the recipes required for different crops can be stored in the cloud, and the plant factories outputted by the whole plant can be continuously exported from the plant to the country as long as the equipment can be connected to the cloud service. Get the latest research results and update recipes, and make the delivery of services faster and more convenient.

3, the third stage - comprehensive intelligent regulation

The best way to apply the Internet of Things and plant factories is to have a comprehensive "intelligent regulation." In other words, the technology through the Internet of Things is moving towards an automated adjustment of the growth environment and control phase; not just the Know-How to monitor and provide growth recipes, but still need to be manpowered after obtaining relevant information.

When the plant factory is to be extended to non-professionals, this stage can bring more convenience and save many complicated details. As long as the plant cultivation equipment is started, the current production environment monitoring is started, and the crop recipe to be planted is downloaded through the cloud platform, and the equipment is automatically adjusted to the growth environment of the operation, and then the production can be started. Even if it is a commercial plant that is mass-produced, it needs to be developed at this stage to facilitate rapid replication and information feedback of plant factory operations.

Conclusion

In recent years, the promotion of the Internet of Things has mostly stayed in the research of technology and original application fields, but many application areas have formed existing operation methods and processes, and there are many difficulties in the process of subsequent introduction. Therefore, in the development of the Internet of Things, we must consider more opportunities to seek new industries, and plant factories are the options for China's industrial development. The above three stages of introduction in the plant factory, from the internal environment monitoring of the factory, the extraction of external information clouds, to the comprehensive equipment control, just compare the three layers of the sensing layer, the network layer and the application layer under the IoT technology architecture; It is expected that the application of plant factories in the future of IoT technology will increase dramatically.

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