STTR Phase I: Automation and Optimization of Aquaponics for Urban Food Production

这一小型企业技术转移(STTR)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是开发一种自动化的高强度食品生产系统，该系统可以在城市社区运行，为城市人口提供新鲜食品。这项创新，通过自动化技术的开发和测试，将加强对如何将计算机科学和信息技术用于城市食品生产的科学和技术理解。粮食系统不仅涉及城市可持续发展的环境/物质层面，而且还具有强烈的文化内涵。食物创造了社区。因此，粮食系统可以解决城市可持续性的社会/文化和环境/物质方面的问题。目标是为城市食品安全做出颠覆性和创新性的贡献，并改善城市社区与食品相关的疾病，如肥胖症、糖尿病和高血压的状况。STTRI期项目建议开发一种可以在城市社区运行的“自动化和持续优化的”水培系统，用于高强度的食品生产。这个系统建立在畜牧业和蔬菜种植的共生关系上。动物产生的排泄物为植物提供营养。然而，这种共生关系并不简单。主要研究目标是控制共生营养流，以持续和最大程度自动化的方式维持脆弱生态系统的最佳平衡。该项目将开发一个由传感器-执行器技术和基于大数据和物联网技术的自动控制器组成的城市邻里水培自动化包。这将使研究能够确定采用摄动理论的线性控制理论或非线性时间域状态空间方法在自动化中是否有效。这项研究和开发将在人与自然的交汇点使用控制理论、物联网、网络物理计算和大数据技术重新定义高科技水培领域的尖端技术。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project will be to develop an automated high-intensity food production system that can be operated in urban neighborhoods to provide fresh food to urban populations. This innovation, through the development and testing of the automation technology, will enhance scientific and technical understanding of how computer science and information technology can be used for urban food production. Food systems address not only the environmental/physical dimensions of urban sustainability, but they are also intensely cultural. Food creates communities. Food systems can, therefore, address both the social/cultural and the environmental/physical aspects of urban sustainability. The goals are to make disruptive and innovative contributions to urban food security, and to improve the state of the food-related illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in urban neighborhoods.This STTR Phase I project proposes to develop an "automated and continuously optimized" aquaponics system that can be operated in urban neighborhood for high-intensity food production. This system builds on the symbiotic relationship of animal farming and growing vegetables. The waste produced by the animal supplies nutrients for the plants. Yet, such a symbiotic relationship is not simple. The main research objective is to control the symbiotic nutrition flow in order to maintain the optimal balance of the delicate ecosystem in a continuous and maximally automated manner. This project will develop an urban neighborhood aquaponics automation package that consists of sensor-actuator technologies and an automated controller based on Big Data and Internet of Things technologies. This will enable research that will determine if linear control theory with perturbation theory or nonlinear time-domain state-space methods can be effective in the automation. This research and development will redefine the state-of-the-art in the area of high-tech aquaponics using control theory, Internet of Things, cyber-physical computing, and Big Data technologies at the juncture of human and nature intersection.