Networked Control of Greenhouses

该项目的目标是开发专门用于恶劣环境的高生产力温室所需的网络控制系统技术基础设施。我们提出的研究的智力价值是全球粮食生产正面临着越来越大的资源压力，由于城市化，淡水供应减少，人口增加，并针对农业生物燃料。温室通过创造受控的生长环境，可将生产力提高6- 20倍。传感、计算和通信技术在低成本、低功耗、微型设备上的快速融合，正在推动网络控制系统的革命。这些是分布式控制/估计系统，具有大量的传感器，执行器和计算节点，通过有线或自组织无线网络进行通信。网络控制系统将使下一代高科技温室成为可能。这些将包括用于无处不在的传感的无线传感器网络，用于调节环境变量的优化控制架构，更广泛的影响该项目的社会影响是开发技术工具，通过保护精准农业，可用于在恶劣环境中经济高效地生产粮食。该项目的科学影响将源于开发基础系统，跨一类应用环境的网络控制系统的理论分析和设计方法。将开发分层架构方法，以导航设计权衡，如计算资源分配，通信协议的选择，和功率/可靠性的妥协。该项目的技术影响是，它将使系统的，具有成本效益的网络控制温室设计，特别适合恶劣的环境。具体而言，将开发适用于通用温室的面向控制的模型，研究分布式故障检测和隔离算法，并设计适当的可扩展分布式控制架构。该项目的变革方面是开发基础网络控制基础设施，通过大批量生产温室的环境控制来提高作物产量。

The objective of this program is to develop the network control system technology infrastructure necessary for high-productivity greenhouses specialized to harsh environments.The intellectual merit of our proposed research is Global food production is coming under increased resource pressure due to urbanization, reduced fresh-water availability, population increase, and targeting agriculture for bio-fuels. Greenhouses offer a 6-20X productivity increase by creating controlled growing environments.The rapid convergence of sensing, computing and communication technologies on cost effective, low power, miniature devices is enabling a revolution in Networked Control Systems. These are distributed control/estimation systems with large numbers of sensors, actuators, and computing nodes that communicate over wire-line or ad hoc wireless networks.Networked control systems will enable the next generation of high-technology greenhouses. These will include wireless sensor networks for ubiquitous sensing, optimized control architectures for regulation of environmental variables, and distributed fault-detection algorithms.Broader Impact The societal impact of the project comes is in developing technological tools that can be used for cost-effective production of food in harsh environments through protected precision agriculture.The scientific impact of the project will stem from developing fundamental system-theoretic analysis and design methods for networked control systems across a class of application contexts. Layered architecture approach will be developed to navigate design tradeoffs such as computational resource allocation, communication protocol choice, and power/reliability compromises.The technological impact of the project is that it will enable the systematic, cost-effective design of network controlled greenhouses particularly suited for harsh environments. Specifically, control-oriented models suitable for generic greenhouses will be developed, algorithms for distributed fault detection and isolation will be investigated, and appropriate scalable distributed control architectures will be devised.The transformative aspect of this project is to develop the foundational network control infrastructure necessary to increase crop yield by environment control of high-volume production greenhouses.