Greenhouse DSS

Greenhouses are nowadays the most sophisticated way to control plant environment to increase their production, reduce the impact of climate uncertainty, provides physical barriers to diseases, enabling a strong reduction of chemical pesticides. To achieve better use of these complex cultivation systems, growers need to anticipate how the setup of the greenhouse devices, such as heating, CO2 generator, or irrigation system, will impact plant development and then the operator’s gross margin.

The decision support system developed by Cybeletech consists of two modules: the first one enables to collect and preprocess of environmental data from the greenhouse sensors, and the second leverage these data through numerical simulation models and optimization algorithms to discover enhancing greenhouse management policies.

In PHYSICS, the data collection module has been transformed in a modular Node-RED flow and deployed on the edge using the PHYSICS Design Environment. On the other hand, the optimization module will be adapted to FaaS architecture and deployed in the cloud using the PHYSICS platform.

Benefits

Components developed in PHYSICS facilitate the deployment of the data collection pipeline on the Edge while reducing the efforts required to adapt the solution to novel greenhouse system, resulting in significant cost reduction for growers. Moreover the pattern developed for data collection on the Edge increases the reliability and consistency of the information provided to the growers about environmental conditions in the greenhouse and plant status.
Moving the greenhouse management optimization pipeline from traditional to FaaS architecture will improve the flexibility of the solution, allowing to find the best possible balance between efficiency and cost for the growers.