Smart indoor vertical farm

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to propose a smart design of vertical farming system in a relatively small scale that can be adopted either at home or workplace. The reason to propose a new small vertical system is that the current automated vertical planting systems used in smart countries, mostly are designed in a relatively large scale with multiply layers so as to produce massive plant yield but not designed for home used. Considering from the angle of citizens with strong favour of self-planting and requirement of less space usage and living under a fast pace, a smart automated vertical farming system is the best solution. Another purpose of this project is to design an electronic circuit for the smart indoor vertical farm so as to achieve automated monitoring and automated control which in turn reduce energy usage. Moreover, the third purpose of this project is to design an control set up for vertical farming system with regular timer control on lighting and watering so as to find out whether smart system or timer system is better for lettuce growth and more user friendly and ecofriendly. "Vertical Farming" can refer as a green wall which is comprised of plants grown in vertical system which are attached to either an external or internal wall, and "Smart vertical farm" is comprised of monitoring automation and control automation. Regarding to the farming system proposed in this project, five types sensors (Humidity & Temperature Sensor, Water Level Sensor, pH Sensor, Soil Moisture Sensor, luminous Sensor) and several electronic devices (LED, LCD display, Real time clock, Arduino Mega, Water Pump) are used so as to achieve monitoring and control automation. The factors, like environmental humidity and temperature, water level, pH value, soil moisture and light intensity, affecting the plant growth can be obtained via sensors and microprocessor (Arduino Mega) which in turn can be used in the control decision. The fresh biomass/weight of the lettuce and the energy usage in week 1 and week 5 is used as an compare evidences. After 5 weeks planting, the result show that the lettuces grew with a special pattern. The highest location the lettuce is, the much weight gain the lettuce has. The lower location the lettuce is, the fewer weight gain the lettuce has. And the productivity of the lettuce in smart system is not more affected by the frame layers due to relatively proper amount of water supply. Moreover, regarding to the energy use analysis , the energy use in smart system is relatively less than timer system, but the energy consumption is not significant reduce due to LED ON for a long time.