ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. This paper proposes a cloud computing technique to apply to microclimate monitoring and environmental control applications in greenhouse. The use of cloud-based wireless network can reduce the wiring and cabling cost of wired network in greenhouse and easy to configure and adjust. The proposed system consists of main control modules, multiple sub-control modules and sensing modules, which collect the environmental parameters of each node in greenhouse and perform control decision based on fuzzy inference engine and expert knowledge database. The user can utilize the graphical user interface (GUI) or webpage application interface to setup the desired environment parameters (such as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and photo flux) of each zone and then send it to the sub-system via Zigbee module. The environmental control module of each sub-system will be performed to maintain the desired environment parameters setup by the user. The experiment is tested in semi-closed greenhouse which includes four cultivation zones. One sub-system and sensors are installed in each zone and the major system is placed outside the greenhouse. The proposed system is helpful for user to observe the variation of environment parameters of each cultivation zone remotely through GUI and webpage. Meanwhile, the regulation of environment parameters is executed automatically through cloud computing. The proposed method can achieve a different manipulation of each cultivation zone for heterogeneous environments.