Temperature and Humidity Controlling System for Baby Incubator

Baby incubator is very important to keep the newborn’s body temperature especially for premature babies. The research aimed to design a baby incubator with controlled temperature and humidity. The incubator is designed to have a length of 60 cm, a width of 40 cm, and a height of 30 cm. System of baby incubator will automatically turn on or turn off the fan and or heating in accordance with the normal range of temperature and humidity in the incubator. The normal limits of temperature used is 33°C to 35°C. While the normal limits of air humidity in the incubator used is between 40% and 60%. Data acquisition system consists of temperature and humidity sensor, microcontroller ATmega8535, fan, heater, and LCD. LCD is used to display the results of measurements of temperature and humidity. Heater is used to regulate the temperature in the incubator. While fan is used to regulate the humidity in the incubator. Test results show that the heater will turn on if the temperature is below the limits of 33°C. While the fan will turn on if the humidity is above 60

Automation and Robotics Used in Hydroponic System

Hydroponic system requires periodic labor, a systematic approach, repetitive motion and a structured environment. Automation, robotics and IoT have allowed farmers to monitoring all the variables in plant, root zone and environment under hydroponics. This research introduces findings in design with real time operating systems based on microcontrollers; pH fuzzy logic control system for nutrient solution in embed and flow hydroponic culture; hydroponic system in combination with automated drip irrigation; expert system-based automation system; automated hydroponics nutrition plants systems; hydroponic management and monitoring system for an intelligent hydroponic system using internet of things and web technology; neural network-based fault detection in hydroponics; additional technologies implemented in hydroponic systems and robotics in hydroponic systems. The above advances will improve the efficiency of hydroponics to increase the quality and quantity of the produce and pose an opportunity for the growth of the hydroponics market in near future

Controlling temperature using proportional integral and derivative control algorithm for hybrid forced convection solar dryer

Drying is one of the crucial processes in agricultural production, especially in grain processing. The drying process can improve grain quality and affect the grain content. However, maintaining the temperature is a challenge in the drying process. Because it can influence the drying performance and produce a low-efficiency reduction of water content, in this study, the hybrid drying system is proposed to improve the performance of the forced convection dryer system. The proposed system used a proportional integral and derivative (PID) control system to obtain the optimal temperature. The proposed system was compared with natural drying and forced convection methods. The experimental result showed that the proposed system performed excellently for three performance evaluations. The average temperature was obtained as the highest of the other methods, with 54.68 °C and 54.55 °C for coffee and cocoa beans. The water content can be reduced by an average of 27.38% and 42.67% for coffee and cocoa beans. Then, the proposed system also had the highest reduction efficiency of water content than the other methods, with 62.71% and 36.94% reductions for coffee and cocoa beans, respectively. The results indicate that the proposed hybrid system performs better than the other methods

PLC based Structure for Management and Control of Distributed Energy Production Units

Today, the improvements in system communications have stimulated the implementation of distributed systems. These distributed systems are then usually managed by a centralized supervisory platform, commonly known as a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). This strategy reaches different fields, from agriculture, to industry, building automation, etc (Figueiredo & Botto, 2005), (Figueiredo & Sá Costa, 2007). An optimal-performance supervisory system has the objective to allocate the minimal needed power generation to the traditional power plant in order to produce the electricity at a minimal economic cost. This paper presents a supervisory system to monitor and control energy production and consumption, in an optimized way. The developed system consists of a network of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), controlling locally the electricity production in each source, and measuring, in a real time base, the power consumption and production. The PLC network is parameterized according to the traditional Master-Slave requirements, using the PROFIBUS communication (Siemens, 2001). A SCADA system is implemented in order to supervise the entire PLC network. This monitoring and control strategy is simulated based on the requirements of the renewable energy park that is being assembled in Évora University. This experimental park is founded by an European project (PETER) with Évora University – Portugal and Extremadura University – Spain. The PETER park is a renewable energy park that plans to include a photovoltaic unit (10 KW), a wind generator (1KW) and a biomass unit (75KW)

Research on intelligent greenhouse based on Internet of Things

There are many drawbacks in the current traditional agricultural model, which consumes a lot of manpower, material resources and fi nancial resources to solve the problem of crop growth environment. In order to change this situation, real-time detection and remote control of its environmental data, an intelligent greenhouse integrated system based on the Internet of Things was proposed. The system includes four modules: environment detection, gateway transmission, control execution and remote monitoring. The environment detection module detects the growth environment information in real time, and uploads real-time data with the help of the Internet of Things gateway. Users can remotely monitor the growing environment and growth state of crops in the greenhouse through mobile phone apps and computer web pages. At the same time, according to the growth environment data, control and implement equipment to adjust environmental factors in time to achieve accurate planting and improve crop yield and quality. Avoid the waste of agricultural resources

Assessment of Smart Mechatronics Applications in Agriculture: A Review

Smart mechatronics systems in agriculture can be traced back to the mid-1980s, when research into automated fruit harvesting systems began in Japan, Europe, and the United States. Impressive advances have been made since then in developing systems for use in modern agriculture. The aim of this study was to review smart mechatronics applications introduced in agriculture to date, and the different areas of the sector in which they are being employed. Various literature search approaches were used to obtain an overview of the current state-of-the-art, benefits, and drawbacks of smart mechatronics systems. Smart mechatronics modules and various networks applied in the processing of agricultural products were examined. Finally, relationships in the data retrieved were tested using a one-way analysis of variance on keywords and sources. The review revealed limited use of sophisticated mechatronics in the agricultural industry in practice at a time of falling production rates and a dramatic decline in the reliability of the global food supply. Smart mechatronics systems could be used in different agricultural enterprises to overcome these issues

Sustainable Industrial Engineering along Product-Service Life Cycle/Supply Chain

Sustainable industrial engineering addresses the sustainability issue from economic, environmental, and social points of view. Its application fields are the whole value chain and lifecycle of products/services, from the development to the end-of-life stages. This book aims to address many of the challenges faced by industrial organizations and supply chains to become more sustainable through reinventing their processes and practices, by continuously incorporating sustainability guidelines and practices in their decisions, such as circular economy, collaboration with suppliers and customers, using information technologies and systems, tracking their products’ life-cycle, using optimization methods to reduce resource use, and to apply new management paradigms to help mitigate many of the wastes that exist across organizations and supply chains. This book will be of interest to the fast-growing body of academics studying and researching sustainability, as well as to industry managers involved in sustainability management