Development of Racking and Irrigation System for Industrial Revolution 4.0 Vertical Farming

摘要

This paper presents a design for multi-layer vertical farming rack to be used as an integrated component in fully automated farming of ginger plants with minimum interactions of humans, in line with Industrial revolution 4.0. The vertical rack is designed in parallel so an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) can travel along in the middle for data collecting, observation and retrieving purposes. The whole rack system can hold 96 plants, consists of two 19 m rows. Each row has two stacks of plants. 64 units of plants will receive LED treatment, where else the balance 32 unit of plants will not have LED installed for experiment purposes. Rack will be equipped with protrusions to assist robot with its position sensor. Also, each plant containment will be equipped with required LED lights and watering system, complete with waste water drainage path. AGV was tested along the racks to test its stability and reachability of the arm in retrieving plants tray. This test was carried out using dummy load to test the overall strength, vibration and accuracy of the AGV arm. All tests passed satisfactory.