System Sensing in Vertical Farming and Controlled Environment Agriculture (Sys-Sens)

SYS-SENS是一项多学科的努力，旨在针对社会面临的关键挑战之一-确保子孙后代的可持续粮食生产，同时减少对环境的负面影响。在过去的十年里，气候变化的影响，以及最近几个月的新冠肺炎，突显了我们当前粮食生产业务的极其脆弱的性质，并再次提醒我们，有必要优化我们的粮食生产系统，加快努力实现脱碳和可持续发展，这反过来将提高当地的粮食产量。很明显，如果我们要帮助食品供应链去碳化，并提高我们的粮食自给自足，我们就需要缩短我们的供应链。控制环境农业(CEA)，包括垂直耕作，在过去5-10年中取得了显著进展，与现有作物生产相比，大大节省了水和养分的使用，随着能源来源和管理的进步，似乎将成为生产相当大比例粮食和减少对即时进口的依赖的可持续途径，2018年进口价值140亿GB(受控环境农业)。这个项目汇集了作物生物学、表型鉴定、受控环境农业/垂直农场、光子学、遥感和产品交付方面的专家，作为设计产品的第一步，该产品用于准确和非侵入性地测量作物压力及其与食品营养含量/成熟度和生产优化的关系。这些关系将构成传感器衍生算法的基础，这些算法将通过与垂直农场数据管理系统的集成，促进持续的生产优化，提高生产率和减少碳足迹。在这里，将在最先进的商业垂直农场示范器(IGS)中进行试点试验，以确定在可操作的受控环境农业环境中的价值。传感器概念的证明和随后的商业化将使(英国和全球)CEA食品生产商能够优化其运营，从而降低能源、化肥和水的使用量，同时向消费者提供更高营养价值的食品。

SYS-SENS is a multidisciplinary effort designed to target one of the key challenges facing society - that of ensuring sustainable food production for future generations whilst reducing the negative effects on the environment. Over the last decade the effects of climate change, and in recent months COVID-19, have highlighted the incredibly fragile nature of our current food production operations and served as yet another reminder that there is a real and present necessity to optimise our food production systems and accelerate efforts towards decarbonisation and sustainability which will in turn boost local food production. It has become evident that we need to shorten our supply chains if we are to help decarbonise the food supply chains and also to increase our food self-sufficiency. Controlled environment agriculture (CEA), including vertical farming, has advanced significantly over the last 5-10 years delivering major savings in water and nutrient use compared to existing crop production and, with the advances in energy sourcing and management, looks set to be a sustainable route to producing a significant proportion of our food and reduce the reliance on just-in-time imports, valued at £14bn in 2018 (Controlled Environment Agriculture. Savills 2019).This project brings together experts in crop biology, phenotyping, controlled environment agriculture/vertical farms, photonics, remote sensing and product delivery as a first step to designing a product for the accurate and non-invasive measurement of crop stresses and their relationship to food nutritional content/maturity and production optimisation. These relationships will form the bases of sensor-derived algorithms that will, through integration with the vertical farm data management system, facilitate continuous produce optimisation, increased productivity and reduced carbon footprint. Here a pilot trial will be undertaken in a state-of-the-art commercial vertical farm demonstrator (IGS) to determine value in an operational controlled environment agriculture setting. Proof of the concept and subsequent commercialisation of the sensor will allow (UK and global) CEA food producers to optimise their operations leading to lower energy, fertiliser & water use whilst simultaneously delivering higher nutritional value foods to the consumer.