Portable indoor growth units utilising closed-loop hydroponics and artificial lighting are of interest for office spaces, classrooms and laboratories. The ability to grow small amounts of microgreens, herbs or salad indoors is beneficial for educational, research and personal well-being purposes.
In this project, CultinovaEDGE™ technology was utilised to realise a fully integrated control system for an indoor growing unit. Using a recycling flood-&-drain hydroponic system split over three levels, with multi-spectral LED lighting and temperature control, the demonstrator unit enabled the hyper-local production of small volumes of crops under tightly controlled conditions.
The unit was novel in that parameters critical to plant health, such as lighting conditions, irrigation and fertigation, and temperature are controlled automatically for the crop of choice, from germination through to harvest. The ability to choose a 'recipe' for the plant of choice simplifies the growing process, but also allows for variation of parameters where optimisation of growth conditions is required.
