Greenhouse Automation with Industrial PLC Arduino
Published on : Sunday 08-08-2021
How to remotely control the humidity, the ventilation, the CO2 level and the luminosity with an automated greenhouse system.
A customer was looking for an Open-Source solution for an automated greenhouse system in order to implement all the technical specifications he wanted with unlimited options, difficult to achieve with a turnkey solution.
They decided to use the Industrial Arduino and Raspberry Pi Panel PC equipment for several reasons:
a. Economising in expenses
b. Ease of wiring with screwless connector
c. Ability to program in several languages or using free tools such as Arduino IDE.
Working in greenhouse environment
This project allows controlling remotely the humidity, the ventilation, the CO2 level and the luminosity in a greenhouse.
The data acquisition is configured with a graphical interface programmed in an Industrial Shields Panel PC with a Raspberry Pi built in. While the control of humidity, CO2 and air is automatic, lights are controlled according to the time, although they can be set manually.
Automated greenhouse requirements for the customer
The greenhouse controller that our customer wanted to automatize required a remote control on the humidity levels, CO2, temperature and lighting of the different spaces that make up the greenhouse and a system that would alert him in case of finding any of the variables out of range.
To achieve this goal, they chose to use different communication protocols such as I2C and Ethernet, among others, and also programming tools such as Arduino IDE or Node-RED.
In order to control the entire installation, the customer has required two-controller Arduino Ethernet PLCs. On one hand, the industrial controller received the data from the HVAC sensors, at the first choice, connected by an I2C bus; I2C multiplexers have also been added to cover the entire installation, at second and third choice, the installation also combines digital and analog sensors.
The customer has implemented a control system for each phase (humidity, temperature, level of CO2 and luminosity) and looking at the level of each variable from the sensors decided on the actuators (pumps, valves, ventilation, light) in a sketch made with Arduino IDE.
To have control over the situation in the greenhouse controller, a Panel PC was added to the system. The data of the two Ethernet PLCs are sent via Ethernet to the Panel PC.
In the Panel PC, an MQTT broker has been configured to handle the requests and the Node-RED programming tool has been used to create the framework and manage the communications between the Ethernet PLCs and the Panel PC.
Based in Barcelona and founded in October 2012, Industrial Shields is the brand under the company Boot and Work Corp S.L. It is a fast growing company with the aim to become the biggest developer and producer of industrial automation electronic devices based on Open Source Hardware electronics. The goal is to offer the widest choice of products at a very reasonable cost compared with the products that are developed under the current market leaders. The company is currently delivering worldwide to the main industrialised markets.
Courtesy: https://www.industrialshields.com
