IoT-based urban agriculture container farm design and implementation for localized produce supply

• Published in: Computers and electronics in agriculture 2022-12, Vol.203, p.107445, Article 107445
• Main Authors: He, Leilei, Fu, Longsheng, Fang, Wentai, Sun, Xiaoming, Suo, Rui, Li, Guo, Zhao, Guanao, Yang, Ruizhe, Li, Rui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Container farm; Controlled environment agriculture; Environmental monitoring and control; Internet of Things; Urban agriculture
• ISSN: 0168-1699; 1872-7107
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2022.107445

•Miniaturized controlled environment agriculture for urban agriculture application.•A multi-layer cultivate pattern for improving space utilization.•Modular control system design that facilitates functional expansion.•An IoT-based management system for environment monitoring and control.•System stability and feasibility has been verified by actual cultivation. With increasing population in cities, urban agriculture has been proposed as a solution for sustainable urban development and food security improvement. In this application note, as an attempt at small-scale controlled environment agriculture, a container farm was constructed to provide an anniversary localized fresh produce supply in urban areas. The constructed container farm adopted a multi-layer cultivation pattern with artificially controlled environment for maximizing revenue in limited urban vacant areas available. Considering requirements of efficient management, an internet of things (IoT) management system was designed to monitor and control environment of this container farm remotely and on-site. As a case study, the container farm was placed in an outdoor parking space for urban agriculture application with mushrooms as trial crop. The cultivation experimental results have shown that internal microclimate of the constructed container farm have presented the characteristics of long-term stability with short-term changes while the IoT system provided reliable production data collection.