Design and Implementation of an Arduino-based Root-Zone Temperature control system

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International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, UGC Approved List of Recommended Journal, Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2018)

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Design and Implementation of an Arduino-based

Root-Zone Temperature control system

Morice O. Odhiambo

1

, Wang Xiao Chan

1, 2*

, Pessane Ivan Jaime de Antonio

1

, Shi Yi Yan

1

, Zhao Bo

1

College of Engineering, Nanjing Agricultural University, No.40 DianJiangTai Road, Pukou District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

2

Jiangsu Province Engineering Laboratory for Modern Intelligent Facilities in Agricultural Technology & Equipment, Nanjing 210031, China, No.40 DianJiangTai Road, Pukou District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China Abstract—Low ambient air temperature experienced during

winter and early spring in Southern China expose plants to cold stress in an unheated greenhouse. Cold stress results in growth inhibition and an acute reduction in productivity in greenhouse plants, but due to the high energy consumption and costs, most of the greenhouses remain unheated. The few heated greenhouses usually result in environmental degradation from high consumption of non-renewable energy sources. In an attempt to find a simple and affordable solution to this problem that plagued small-scale farmers in this region, this study was undertaken.

Recent studies have shown that manipulation of the root-zone temperature of plants can improve the general plant health and appreciate productivity even though the above-soil portions are exposed to environmental stresses. Therefore, in this study, an Arduino-based root zone temperature (RZT) control system was designed and implemented to investigate the possibility of successful cultivation of pepper plants in an unheated greenhouse. The pepper plants were cultivated under cold stress in the RZT control system which encompassed an Arduino microcontroller, RZT acquisition module, RZT display module, switch module and heating module. The findings demonstrate that the system sustained the growth and development of pepper plants from the vegetative stage to the reproductive stage. A theoretical comparison of the power consumption of a conventional unitary system of greenhouse heating to the carbon fiber metal alloy heating boards revealed that the estimated output per hour of the conventional unitary systems required to maintain the greenhouse at the desired set-point temperature under extreme weather conditions was 96.31% higher than that for the heating boards. In conclusion, the RZT control system provided a simple, affordable and cost-effective method of growing greenhouse crops under cold stress in the Yangtze River Delta area of Southern China, offering the possibility of low energy consumption with high crop productivity. In addition, it provided a pollution-free alternative technique that could possibly substitute conventional greenhouse heating systems.

Keywords—Arduino microcontroller, Cold Stress, Root Zone Temperature, Root Zone Heating, Yangtze River Delta area of Southern China.

Abbreviations—RZT: Root Zone Temperature, GRP: Glass-Reinforced Plastics

I. INTRODUCTION

Winter and early spring in Southern China are often characterized by low ambient air temperature that results in the exposure of plants to cold stress in an unheated greenhouse. Cold stress has a severe effect on photosynthesis, plant enzyme activity, plant metabolism and plant fresh, dry matter accumulation [1-3]. This consequently leads to growth inhibition and an acute reduction in productivity in plants in an unheated greenhouse. However, due to the high energy costs, most of the greenhouses in this region usually remain unheated during winter and early spring. Conventional greenhouse heating systems in China involves usage of non-renewable energy sources such as coal and petroleum. High consumption of these energy sources produces high amounts of CO, CO2, SO2 and NOwhich are chronic air

pollutants [4, 5], therefore the few heated greenhouses usually result in environmental degradation. In addition, the poor degree of automation in majority of heated greenhouse results in massive heat wastage and uneven heat distribution within the greenhouse[6]. The ever increasing costs of these energy sources and the resulting detrimental environment effects of their usage, has brought into focus the need for the development of a simple, affordable, efﬁcient and sustainable greenhouse heating systems. One of the proposed techniques is root zone heating.

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Studies have shown that root zone heating can enhance plant growth, development and productivity[9-11], and reduce energy consumption[12]. In addition, the root-zone has a higher specific heat capacity as compared to the above-soil portion. This property of root zone provides the possibility of accurate, direct, simple manipulation and regulation of the temperature of the root-zone area[13] In the wake of intelligent control systems, Arduino has been extensively applied as a PID controller due to its reliability, simplicity, ease of use and ability to provide high control efficiency[14]. Also, its compatibility in interfacing with computing programs for instance LabVIEW and MATLAB makes Arduino the first choice microcontroller in many applications. Arduino has been used in a wide range of practical applications; robotics and image processing[15], wireless sensor networks[16-18], bioelectrical impedance analysis[19], computer numerical control[20], baby incubators[21] and health monitoring applications[22], GPS/GPRS vehicle monitoring and tracking systems[23-25] smart home control[26, 27], water level control in process industry[28], smart irrigation systems[29] and temperature control systems[30, 31]. Due to the attractions that Arduino offer as a decision control tool, an Arduino-based PID controller was selected to be used in the RZT control system.

In this research, an Arduino-based RZT control system was designed and implemented to provide the necessary RZT conditions to perform growth and chlorophyll fluorescence characteristic investigations. The system encompassed an Arduino microcontroller, RZT acquisition module, RZT display module, Switch module, keypad module, data storage module and heating module. The system was able to achieve data acquisition by collecting RZTs from multiple points within the root zone, processing, control and achieved the established control indexes and display of RZTs. The design provided a simple, affordable, flexible and cost effective system. In addition, it provided a pollution-free alternative technique that could substitute conventional greenhouse heating systems.

In the past two decades, studies have been carried out on techniques of growing greenhouse plants during winter in Southern China. Some of the studies carried out assessed LED light supplementation[32], but a small fraction focused root zone temperature heating. Hence, this research purposed to find a solution that encompassed root zone heating, thus the design and testing of a root-zone temperature control system.

The findings could provide an understanding of a viable, simple, and cost-effective technique of successfully growing greenhouse crops during winter in Southern China.

II. MATERIALS AND METHODS

A. Experimental Setup and Test Material

The experiment and the system was set-up in a 2-ridge Venlo-type, an unheated greenhouse located at the College of Engineering of Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province of China (118º 46´ N, 32º03´E). The study was carried out between 27th December 2016 and 19th June 2017. The test material was Pepper (Sujiao No. 5) seedlings that were transplanted into the cultivation bed on 27th of December, 2017. The cultivation bed was divided into four RZT treatments; CK-Control group, T20- 20°C RZT, T25-25°C RZT and T45-45°C RZT.

B. Overall System Design

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C. System Hardware Design

1) Controller Module

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The Arduino UNO is a microcontroller whose operating principle is based on reading sensor values, making logical choices and decisions and transmitting the required signals to the actuators[33]. The Arduino Uno R3 (Arduino, China) applied in this study had an ATMEGA328P-PU processor used with an ICSP; In Circuit Serial Programmer. The technical specifications of the Arduino UNO R3 are; Operating Voltage 5V, Input Voltage limits 6V-20V, Digital I/O Pins 16 of which 6 pins (3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11) provide PWM output, Analog Input Pins were 6, DC Current per I/O Pin was 40 mA, DC Current for 3.3V Pin was 50 mA and Flash Memory 512 KB, SRAM 96 KB, EEPROM 0 KB, Clock Speed 16 MHz[34].

Fig.1a Block diagram of the root zone temperature control system.

[image:3.612.25.280.370.519.2]

The Arduino UNO has two power plugs; the USB power plug and the separate power plug that is used to supply

Fig.1b Schematic Diagram of the root-zone temperature control system.

power through an external power source. The Digital pins (0, 1) are labeled 0; RX and 1; TX, and they are serial in and serial out pins. GND pins were 3; input voltage pin was one, 5V pin was one, 3.3V pin was one, one reset push-button, and AREF pin was one. Core module circuit of the ATMEGA328P-PU processor is as shown in Fig. 2a

and the Arduino UNO board is as shown in Fig. 2b;

PB0/ICP1/CLKO/PCINT0 10

PB1/OC1A/PCINT1 11

PB3/MOSI/OC2A/PCINT3 13

PB2/SS/OC1B/PCINT2 12

PD6/AIN0/OC0A/PCINT22

8 PD5/T1/OC0B/PCINT21

7 PD4/T0/XCK/PCINT20

2 PD3/INT1/OC2B/PCINT19

1 PD2/INT0/PCINT18

28 PD1/TXD/PCINT17

27 PD0/RXD/PCINT16

26

PB4/MISO/PCINT4 14

PB5/SCK/PCINT5 15

PB7/TOSC2/XTAL2/PCINT7 6

PB6/TOSC1/XTAL1/PCINT6 5

PC6/RESET/PCINT14 25

PC5/ADC5/SCL/PCINT13 24

PC4/ADC4/SDA/PCINT12 23

PC3/ADC3/PCINT11 22

PC2/ADC2/PCINT10 21

PC1/ADC1/PCINT9 20

PC0/ADC0/PCINT8 19

AVCC

16 AREF

17

PD7/AIN1/PCINT23 9

ATMEGA328P IO7

IO6 IO5 IO4 IO3 IO2 IO1

IO0 IO8

IO9 IO10 IO11 IO12 IO13

AD0 AD1 AD2 AD3 AD4 AD5 RESET AREF

+

5

V

SS MOSI MISO SCK

+5V

LED & Reset

RXD TXD IO10

IO11 IO12 IO13

IO13 IO0

IO1

AD0 AD1 AD2 AD3 AD4 AD5

IO14 IO15 IO16 IO17 IO18 IO19

RESET

ATMEGA 328P

Fig. 2a Core module circuit of the ATMEGA328P-PU processor

ARDUINO MICROCONTROLLER DATA

ACQUISITION MODULE

SWITCH MODULE

RZT HEATING MODULE

RZT DISPLAY MODULE DATA

STORAGE MODULE KEYPAD MODULE

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Fig. 2b: Arduino UNO Board: Arduino UNO board showing 16

digital pins, 6 analog pins, and other various parts[14]

2) RZT Acquisition Module

The data acquisition module realized collection of RZT data and transmitted this to the controller module for analysis and processing. The sensor selected for the RZT acquisition module was the Sensirion SHT10 soil temperature sensors (Sensirion, Switzerland). In total 4 SHT10 sensors were used in the system.

Sensirion SHT10 Soil Temperature and Humidity; The SHT10 is a special soil temperature and humidity sensor. The sensor element and the signal processing element are integrated into a single unit that produces a digital output signal. The sensor includes a capacitive moisture sensitive components, temperature measuring element made by polymerization with energy gap material and 14 A/D converter and serial interface circuit to realize seamless connection. Therefore this product has a super-fast response, strong anti-jamming ability, high performance-to-price ratio. The 2-wire serial interface and internal voltage regulation, make the peripheral system integration rapid and simple.

Operating Conditions of Sensirion SHT10; the sensor is generally stable within the recommended normal operating range. Exposures to operating conditions outside the normal range for long periods of time can result in damage to the sensor. The SHT10 soil temperature sensor selected had the following technical specifications; Power supply voltage 2.4V-5.5V, with a recommended supply voltage of 3.3V, Temperature range -40°C to +123.8°C, Temperature measurement accuracy ±0.3°C to 0.5°C @ 25°C, Moisture range 0% to 100% RH, Humidity measurement precision ±1.8% to 4.5%RH @ 25°C and Power Consumption at sleep 2 μW, measuring 3 mW and an average value 90 μW at on 12bit measurement per second[35, 36].

Communication of the Sensirion SHT10 with the Microcontroller; The SHT 10 sensor has a total of four pins: two communication pins; DATA and SCK, and two Power pins; GND and VDD. The VDD supply voltage and GND is the GND pin. The Serial Clock input (SCK) synchronizes the communication between the microcontroller and the SHT 10 sensor. As the interface entails a fully static logic, there is no minimum SCK frequency. The serial data (DATA) pin is a bidirectional pin used in sending data in and out of the sensor. The data wires DATA of the SHT 10 were connected to the IO2, IO4, IO6 and IO8 and pins of the microcontroller to enable data transmission between Arduino and the SHT 10 sensor. The clock wires SCK of the SHT 10 were connected to the IO3, IO5, IO7 and IO9 pins of the Arduino to facilitate clock synchronization.

3) Root Zone Temperature Display Module

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Fig.3 THM320 Recording Instrument showing real-time RZTs

4) Data Storage Module

After the processing and analysis of RZT data by the Arduino microcontroller, the data is stored by the data storage module. The data storage module comprises of the Adafruit Data Logger Shield (Arduino, China). The Data logger Shield had SD card interface that worked with FAT16 or FAT32 formatted cards. It also features a built-in 3.3V level shifter circuitry that facilities fast read/write and prevents damage to the SD Card. It also features a real time clock (RTC) with coin cell battery backup keeps the time going even when the Arduino is unplugged. The data logger shield applies the R3 layout I2C and ICSP/SPI ports, hence it is compatible with a diverse variety of Arduinos and Arduino-compatibles [37, 38].

The Adafruit Data Logger Shield is as shown in Fig.4.

Fig.4: Adafruit Data Logger Shield

5) Switch Module

The switch module switches Off/On the current to the heating module. It the consisted of relays. Relays are automatic switches that uses a uses a small amount of current to drive a large current. In operation, the Arduino

sends a signal that drives the relays to switch on/off the current to the heating module. The relay selected for the system was JQC-3FF-S-Z, 5V, 4 –Channel relay (Tongling, China). This relay required a 50mA-60mA driver current and was equipped with a high current relay of AC 250V 10A; DC 30V 10A and indication LEDs for relay output status that is usually on when the relay is in operation. This relay has four input signals and corresponding groups of 4 normally-open and normally-closed outputs. In the high current relay, input voltages of 5 V, 12 V or 24 V can be selected. When a signal is transmitted to an input from the Arduino, the corresponding output is normally-open. When there is no signal to input the relay, then the corresponding output is normally-closed. The relay is stable in performance, easy to use and install. In total three relays were used in the system. The relays were connected to the IO4, IO15 and IO16 pins of the microcontroller. A circuit diagram of the connection between the Arduino and the relay is shown in Fig.5.

R

e

a

y

B

u

ff

e

r

RL1

5V

RL2

5V

IO16 IO15

AC

WM1 AC

WM2

240V AC

AC

RL3

5V

IO14 AC

WM3

Fig.5 Proteus Capture the circuit diagram of the Arduino and the relay

6) Power Consumption Measurement

Power consumption was measured by DW-85 (CW Electronic Instrument Co.), digital single phase wattmeter. The wattmeter measured the power consumed by the carbon-fiber metal alloy heating plates. The wattmeter had the following technical specifications; Range of 0.001KWh to 99999KWh, Input Voltage of 0V to 300V, Input Current of 0A to 5A and a resolution of 0.2%FS.

7) Heating Module

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The carbon fiber-metal alloy heating boards had a power rating of 50-100W. As three RZT treatments were required to carry out the experiments, a total of three carbon fiber-metal alloy heating boards were used in the experiment. A thin transparent plastic film covered the top end of the cultivation bed in order to maintain temperature within the bed. A cross-sectional schematic diagram of the Carbon fiber-metal alloy heating boards and cultivation bed is as shown in Fig.6.

Fig. 6 Cross-sectional schematic diagram of the Cultivation Bed and Carbon fiber heating board

8) Connection of Hardware Devices

After selection of the hardware components, the components of the controller, data storage and switch modules were installed in a control box and circuit connections were made. The control box provided a support that allowed for the mounting of the controller module and the switch module. In addition, the control box could be locked to prevent unauthorized operation of the controller module. Holes were drilled on the sides of the control box to provide access for the Arduino board power supply cables, connection of the SHT 10 sensors to the Arduino and the connections of the relays to the heat module. The hardware components installed in the control box mainly included the Arduino board and Adafruit data logger shield, and the relays. The internal connections of the control box were as shown in Fig.7.

Fig. 7: The Internal Connections of the Control Box

D. System Software Design

The system software design entailed root zone temperature measurement and control. The Arduino Uno board was programmed with the Arduino software by connecting the board to a computer via a USB port. Arduino boards have an integrated development environment (IDE) an open-source software based on Processing, avr-GCC, and other open-source software environments[39]. C programming language was used to write the control algorithm in the Arduino IDE and then uploaded onto the Arduino using a laptop computer via a USB port.

1) Control Algorithm

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2) Simulation

The control algorithm was developed and Proteus Design Suite 8.7 was used to simulate the algorithm on a virtual circuit before it is downloaded and implemented on the Arduino microcontroller.

[image:7.612.326.577.133.431.2]

The schematic model of the peripheral modules circuit connection with Atmega328P was captured using Proteus and is as shown in Fig. 8;

Fig. 8: Program Flow Chart

III. RESULTS

A. Greenhouse Abiotic Parameters

During the period of the research, ambient air temperatures within the greenhouse, frequently dropped to below zero. The average ambient air temperature was 16.96°C and the ambient temperature ranged from -2.66°C to 43.01°C. The root zone temperatures traced the desired trajectory pattern as managed by the Arduino. Actual ambient air daytime and night-time temperature variations within the greenhouse are shown in Fig 9a and the actual RZT variations were as in Fig.9b.

B. Plant Growth and Development Characteristics

The RZT control system was able to successfully sustain the growth and development of pepper plants from the vegetative stage to the reproductive stage during winter

PB0/ICP1/CLKO/PCINT010 PB1/OC1A/PCINT111 PB3/MOSI/OC2A/PCINT3PB2/SS/OC1B/PCINT213 12 PD6/AIN0/OC0A/PCINT22 8PD5/T1/OC0B/PCINT21 7PD4/T0/XCK/PCINT20 2PD3/INT1/OC2B/PCINT19 1PD2/INT0/PCINT18 28PD1/TXD/PCINT17 27PD0/RXD/PCINT16 26 PB4/MISO/PCINT414 PB5/SCK/PCINT515 PB7/TOSC2/XTAL2/PCINT76 PB6/TOSC1/XTAL1/PCINT65 PC6/RESET/PCINT1425 PC5/ADC5/SCL/PCINT1324 PC4/ADC4/SDA/PCINT1223 PC3/ADC3/PCINT1122 PC2/ADC2/PCINT1021 PC1/ADC1/PCINT920 PC0/ADC0/PCINT819 AVCC 16AREF 17 PD7/AIN1/PCINT23 9 ATMEGA328P IO7 IO6 IO5 IO4 IO3 IO2 IO1 IO0 IO8 IO9 IO10 IO11 IO12 IO13 AD0 AD1 AD2 AD3 AD4 AD5 RESET AREF + 5 V SS MOSI MISO SCK +5V

LED & Reset

RXD TXD IO10 IO11 IO12 IO13 IO13 IO0 IO1 AD0 AD1 AD2 AD3 AD4 AD5 IO14 IO15 IO16 IO17 IO18 IO19 RESET ATMEGA 328P SCK MISO SS S D C a rd CS DI DO CLK M1 SD MOSI VBAT 3 X11 X22 SCL 6 SDA 5 SOUT 7 U2 DS1307 1 2 32.768kHz SCL SDA BAT1 3V AD5 AD4 R5 2.2k R6 2.2k IO8

Data Logger Shield

http://www.adafruit.com/products/1141

IO14 IO15

Temp & Humidity

R e a y B u ff e r

BOARD 2 BOARD 3

80.0 11.0 %RH > °C DATA 2SCK 3 CONTROL SHT10 80.0 89.0 %RH > °C DATA 2SCK 3 BOARD 1 SHT10 84.0 30.0 %RH > °C DATA 2SCK 3 BOARD 2 SHT11 IO5 IO4 IO7 IO6 IO9 IO8 RL1 5V RL2 5V IO16 IO15 AC WM1 AC WM2 240V AC AC L1 12V L2 12V +88.8 W WM1 B2 B2 B2 +88.8 W WM2 B3 B3 B3 BOARD 1 L3 12V +88.8 W WM3 B1 B1 B1 84.0 30.0 %RH > °C DATA 2SCK 3 BOARD 3 SHT10 IO3 IO2 RL3 5V IO14 AC WM3

Fig.8:Circuit connection of Atmega328P and peripheral modules

in Southern China, achieving the objective of successfully growing plants under cold stress in an unheated greenhouse.

Fig.10a shows the cultivation bed with seedlings of pepper plants at the beginning of the study, and Fig.10b shows the cultivation bed with flowering pepper plants at the end of the study.

C. Power Consumption

The greenhouse was made of aluminum alloy and glass. The greenhouse was 16m in length, 8m in width and 5.2m in height with a total floor area of 128 m2 and total surface square area of 455.6 m2.The glass was 4 mm in thickness. The greenhouse structure was as shown in Fig. 11. During summer and autumn seasons, the primary energy source of the greenhouse is solar radiation. Conversely, in winter and early spring, there is need to supplement the heat acquired from solar energy, especially at night when temperatures frequently drop to below 0°C.

Start

System Initialization

SHT10 Initialization & RZT Acquisition

Arduino RZT data processing

Adafruit data logger shield data storage Parameter comparison

with set-point values

Equal?

Output control signal to the relays

N

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Fig. 9a: Ambient daytime and night-time air temperatures within the greenhouse over the experimental period

Control 20°C 25°C 45°C

Fig. 9b: Actual root zone temperatures of the different RZT treatment groups over 11 weeks of the experimental period

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Fig. 11: Dimensional structure of the solar greenhouse

In the theoretical analysis of a solar greenhouse, heat loss calculation is the most important step in determining the output of the heating system required to maintain the greenhouse at the desired set-point temperature under extreme weather conditions. The rate of heat loss,ԚGRP

from the greenhouse is calculated by Equation 1[40]

ԚGRP=[A1/R1 +A2/R2 +…](Ti-T0 )(fW )(fC )(fS ) Eqn. 1

GRP surface area of greenhouse =455.6 m2, and Thermal resistance of GRP =0.16m2°C. W-1[41]. The optimum ambient air temperature growing conditions for pepper plants ranges between 21°C to 27°C and temperatures below 12°C or above 30°C introduces an environmental stress on the plant[42, 43]. Thus for the purposes of this calculation, an ambient set-point temperature of 25°C is selected setting the temperature inside the greenhouse, Ti =

25°C. According to the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA), the lowest temperature recorded in Pukou District of Nanjing City during the period of the experiement was -4°C, thus the temperature outside the greenhouse under extreem conditions, TO was -4°C . A

wind velocity of 5.5ms-1 at 15m was also recorded[44] Assuming Construction type factor (fC) =1.08, System

factor (fS) =1.00, Wind factor (fW) =1.35, the average

heating load of the solar greenhouse used in this study was obtained to be 120.4 kW at design conditions.

The day and night time average heating load of the carbon fiber-metal alloy heating boards was recorded by

wattmeters and is shown in Fig.12.

IV. DISCUSSION

The average night-time power consumption for the RZT 40℃ carbon fiber-metal alloy board was 2.01 KWhr, and the average value for the RZT 25℃ carbon fiber-metal alloy board was 1.06 KWhr. Each board was 50cm*50cm and was able to successfully sustain the growth and development of four pepper plants from the vegetative stage to the reproductive stage under cold stress in an unheated greenhouse.

A theoretical comparison of a conventional unitary system of greenhouse heating to the carbon fiber-metal alloy heating boards was calculated. An assumption was made that both systems were applied in maintaining a suitable temperature environment for 150 plants within the greenhouse in this study for an hour under extreme weather conditions. The RZT 25℃ heating board was applied in this theoretical evaluation. The theoretical calculations revealed that the estimated output per hour of the conventional unitary systems required to maintain the greenhouse at the desired set-point temperature under extreme weather conditions was 96.31% higher than that for the heating boards. This evidently showed that the power consumption for root zone heating is significantly lower and more efficient in comparison to conventional unitary systems.

V. CONCLUSION

In this study, an Arduino-based root-zone temperature control system was designed and implemented.

1) The system was able to successfully sustain the growth and development of pepper plants from the vegetative stage to the reproductive stage during winter in Southern China, thereby finding a solution for horticulture cultivation in an unheated greenhouse.

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0

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

KWh

r

Day

40℃Board Day 40℃Board Night 25℃Board Day 25℃Board Night

Fig.12:Day and Night-time Power Consumption for the carbon fiber-metal alloy boards

3) The system offered the possibility of low consumption of power with increased productivity of plants as opposed to the high heating costs and environmental degradation associated with conventional unitary systems of greenhouse heating. This system could make significant contributions to the decline in electrical energy usage.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 61273227) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Project No. BE2011336).

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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