Design and Development of Automated Vertical Farming Setup

摘要

Imparting new methodologies into agriculture has become a common order nowadays. The ever-increasing necessity for food production and availability to meet the requirements of the growing population forms a strong backbone to these sustainable new methods. These also propose certain advantages over traditional agriculture such as requirement for less areas of land, immunity to climate changes, and easy access to urban landscapes altogether leading to an increase in quality. An apt example of such a method would be vertical farming, practiced in an indoor environment. The efficiency of these farms is augmented by automation and the use of robots. The work focuses on developing a modular automated setup prototype, with intended use in a vertical farm. It discusses the design and development of key systems, namely, a storage system with vertical levels for housing the plant modules, known as the Vertical Stack System (VSS). It also features certain mechanical elements that aid in a smooth transfer of these modules in and out. A mobile robot is also discussed in the work, developed to navigate the farm environment and transport the plant modules to and from the VSS. The robot’s behavior in a virtual and real world is presented through the use of a simulation model, developed using the kinematics of the mobile robot, and a computational model, developed using sensor feedback, respectively. The development of an ingenious system called the Stacker is also presented. The Stacker is present on-board the mobile robot that is principally responsible for the transfer of plant modules. Additional work is presented for incorporating automation into the setup, through a sensor setup for monitoring and reporting certain environment variables surrounding the plant and through an interconnected operation. The engineering design of each of these systems is discussed, and the control strategies, operational setup, and results are presented later on.