Farm Monitoring & Precision Farming

Farming Orchids is the most successful form of precision farming in Taiwan, and also the most exported flower. Orchids need a specific temperature and humidity conditions to grow and bloom, and its flowering time may not be in line with market demands, so the price collapses when there is overproduction. Therefore, some farmers began to import automated greenhouse control systems for breeding and forcing, which not only improves quality, but also effectively controls the production period and yield to ensure revenue. In 2012, an orchid farmer built a Forcing Greenhouse of about 200 pings (approximately 661 Square Meters) in Tainan, Taiwan. The system integrator adopted Advantech’s APAX-5000 series programmable automation controllers to build the control platform, coupled with Advantech WebAccess HMI/SCADA software, to achieve cloud monitoring. The staff of the orchid field can monitor important data anytime via smart phone, iPad, and other handheld devices, and control the growth and flowering conditions. System requirements: In the past, most environmental control systems of orchid greenhouses in Taiwan used PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller) with poorscalability and control, and could not be connected to the Internet formonitoring from the cloud. For advanced database analysis and networking capability, the PC platform must be adopted. Therefore, PAC Systems (Programmable Automation Controller) with both PLC programming capabilities andPC functions is a better choice.The environmental control of the Orchid greenhouse switches on and off devices like fan, shade net, cooling/heat pump, liquid flow control, water-cooling wall etc. It is controlled by a control panel of electric controllers, and is driven by a motor, to adjust the greenhouse temperature, humidity, and other environmental conditions to the set parameters.

The global population is continuing to grow at a rapid pace placing increasing demands on the global food supply. In addition, impacts from climate change and a yearly reduction of available arable land will require the Agricultural sector to develop better ways of increasing crop yields and reducing costs. GOAL The goal for the Precision Crop Management Testbed is to create an environment where IoT solutions with the potential to impact world hunger can be developed.

Traditionally, farmers either apply a high dosage or a high number of repeat sprayings of chemicals as they do not want to risk any disease or damage to the crops on which their livelihoods depend. This is quite inefficient in terms of both time and money wasted. Dacom aimed to increase the effectiveness of these farmers by providing them with accurate, real-time, and streamlined information.