Authors:
José Dias
1
;
João Paulo Coelho
2
and
José Alexandre Gonçalves
2
Affiliations:
1
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança and Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão, Portugal
;
2
Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão and INESC TEC Technology and Science, Portugal
Keyword(s):
Renewable Energy, Fuzzy Controller, Agriculture.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Artificial Intelligence
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Biomedical Signal Processing
;
Computational Intelligence
;
Computer-Supported Education
;
Domain Applications and Case Studies
;
Fuzzy Control
;
Fuzzy Systems
;
Fuzzy Systems Design, Modeling and Control
;
Health Engineering and Technology Applications
;
Human-Computer Interaction
;
Industrial, Financial and Medical Applications
;
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Intelligent Control Systems and Optimization
;
Methodologies and Methods
;
Neural Networks
;
Neurocomputing
;
Neurotechnology, Electronics and Informatics
;
Pattern Recognition
;
Physiological Computing Systems
;
Sensor Networks
;
Signal Processing
;
Soft Computing
;
Theory and Methods
Abstract:
At the present time there is a high pressure toward the improvement of all the production processes. Those
improvements can be sensed in several directions in particular those that involve energy efficiency. The definition
of tight energy efficiency improvement policies is transversal to several operational areas ranging from
industry to public services. As can be expected, agricultural processes are not immune to this tendency. This
statement takes more severe contours when dealing with indoor productions where it is required to artificially
control the climate inside the building or a partial growing zone. Regarding the latter, this paper presents an
innovative system that improves energy efficiency of a trees growing platform. This new system requires the
control of both a water pump and a gas heating system based on information provided by an array of sensors.
In order to do this, a multi-input, multi-output regulator was implemented by means of a Fuzzy logic
control str
ategy. Presented results show that it is possible to simultaneously keep track of the desired growing
temperature set-point while maintaining actuators stress within an acceptable range.
(More)