| Group |
2015 -10 |
Status |
completed |
| Title |
Automated nutrient distribution and irrigation system for hydroponic greenhouse. |
| Supervisor |
Dr. Luis Rodrigues |
| Description |
The objective is to design and create an automated nutrient distribution irrigation system. It will be comprised of three main components: the control station, the nutrient dissolving station and the irrigation/pump system. There will be two main control feedback loops. One to monitor and control the amount of nutrients dissolved in the tank of water and one to control the amount of water sent to the plants using. Another control loop may be needed to determine how long the stirring mechanism needs to be active for to ensure a completely homogenous and steady state solution. This would require an ion sensor which, if implemented can be used in tandem with a visual sensor determining flow rate to determine when the solution has the desired concentration of nutrients. There will need to be a sensor inside the irrigation to determine flow rate so as to distribute the right amount of water to the plants. The last sensor will monitor water levels in the tank to determine when it is necessary to add more water to the tank. The control station will be a computer monitor with all the processing being run on raspberry pi. Raspberry pi has a temperature sensor which can be linked to the pump in another control loop so that the system will distribute more water on hot days. The system we are designing will be for one unique crop. Ideally, the project will have a UI where the user can input the plant type and the system will refer to a database to determine the appropriate concentrations of nutrients to dissolve in the tank. A gant chart will be initialized and maintained throughout the project to assign work to each member and keep everything on schedule. The control loops will be mathematically designed and modelled in MATLab to be implemented in phase two. The physical model will be built for the phase 2 deadline so that the designs can be tested in phase 3. |
| Requirement |
Control Systems, Electronics, Coding, Modelling, Micro-Controller programming |
| Tools |
[Software, hardware, test equipment, etc] Mechanical lab tools, micro-controller, sensors, processor etc. |
| Number of Students |
3 |
| Students |
Youcheng Zheng
Liam Moore
Emmanuel Ablorh Sowah |
| Comments: |
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| Links: |
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