Abstract

We present an automated system for nutrient solution management. Prior arts usually measure only pH and EC of the nutrient solutions for maintenance. When EC drops, they just simply add concentrated nutrient to the horticulture bed. Such approach can maintain the density of nutrient solution but cannot maintain the rates of individual ion particles. To prevent nutrition related disorders, fertilization methods with ion selective electrodes are widely introduced. This trend measures individual ion concentration of nutrient solution to maintain appropriate nutrient composition by supplying only insufficient ions. Many researchers have suggested ISE based automated fertilization systems. However, they failed to control a chemical artifact called ion interference effect, which becomes greater at higher density. Our system measures individual concentration of multiple ions and add only deficient nutrients, while handling the ion interference effect issue. To ensure the performance of ion selective electrodes, the system also performs fully automated 3-point calibration 24 times a day. A machine learning algorithm is applied on the sensory parts to remove ion interference effect which make measurement of complex solution with ISE almost impossible. With automated calibration and signal processing technology, the system robustly and continuously maintains nutrient condition for plants. We suggest applying this system on closed hydroponic systems such as smart farms or plant factory, to reduce water consumption and to provide more appropriate environment for the crops.

Highlights

  • Closed-hydroponic system is a major trend of hydroponic culture field around the world

  • We are sure that those ion selective electrodes (ISE)-based individual nutrient ion management system is inevitable will be a major and common concept of fertilization system for closed hydroponic systems

  • An architecture and operation algorithm for fully automated fertilization system is proposed. This method is designed for closed hydroponic facilities

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Closed-hydroponic system is a major trend of hydroponic culture field around the world. [3] They tried to investigate the nutrient solution to figure out whether NO3 ion is deficient or not They suggested that measurement of nutrient ion with high accuracy would help precise fertilization and avoidance of water pollution. They tried to measure N, K and Ca ion individually with ISE, and supplied deficient ions only It was a great stride on automated nutrient solution management technology. We are sure that those ISE-based individual nutrient ion management system is inevitable will be a major and common concept of fertilization system for closed hydroponic systems. They did not consider the ion interference effect. We hope applying these latest methods on automated fertilization system will open up a feasible management system, which can be applied on the industry field

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURES AND METHODS
Pumps and Multiway Valves
Sensor Array
Cloud Server
Calibration Strategy
Concnetrate Solutions
Concnetrate Tanks
Mix Tank
Readjustment Strategy
Measurement of Concentrate Solution
OPERATION TEST
Findings
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION

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