Intelligent Racking System Design for the Growing process of future NutraPonics Facility

在一个拥有11.7亿美元农场大门价值的增长部门，艾伯塔省的温室蔬菜发展仅占加拿大温室蔬菜产量的4%。这导致了一种情况，即仍然存在通过广泛的研究为加拿大的食品业带来重大好处的机会。拟议的研究项目解决了现代半自动农场中最劳动密集型和最关键的组件，并解决了半自动食品行业的一个关键问题：货架过程。对于空间有限的室内农场，货架系统不仅决定了农场的生产率，也决定了离开设施的产品质量。然而，工业4.0背后的概念尚未在大多数与数字制造无关的行业中实施。工厂中这种关键部件的自动化将使食品行业在即将到来的革命中向前迈出一大步。虽然RFID技术、生物传感器甚至机器人已经被证明是有可能实现的，但食品行业还没有像其他行业一样采用这项技术，例如汽车。拟议中的项目将是确保美银美林研究人员在当地食品工业可持续自动化方面建立重要关系的一步。该项目将对总部基地人员进行培训，产生与自动化和工业4.0相关的专门知识，并加强业界和学术界的伙伴关系，从而产生创新的研究和应用行业特有的解决方案。

In a growing sector with a $1.17 billion farm gate value, the development of greenhouse vegetables in Albertaonly represents a 4% of the greenhouse vegetable production in Canada. This results into a situation wherethere still exists an opportunity to deliver significant benefits to the food industry in Canada through extensiveresearch. The proposed research project tackles the most labor intensive and critical component of modernsemiautomatic farms and addresses a key issue in the semi-automatic food industry: the racking process. Forindoor farms, where space is limited, the racking system determines not only the production rate of the farmbut also the quality of the products leaving the facility. However, the concepts behind "industry 4.0" have yet tobe implemented in most industries that are not related to digital manufacturing. The automation of such a keycomponent in the factory will suppose a big step forward in the upcoming revolution for the food industry.While RFID technology, biosensors or even robotics have been proven to possibly been implemented, the foodindustry has not taken to the technology with the same pace as other industries, i.e. automotive. The proposedproject will be a step towards securing an important relationship between the UofA researcher in sustainableautomation of the local food industry. The project will result in training of HQPs, generate know-how relatedto automation and industry 4.0, as well as strengthen the industry-academic partnership resulting in innovativeresearch and applied industry specific solutions.