Essay Sample on Agricultural Automation: Boosting Productivity With Robotics and Challenges

Introduction

Agriculture, like any other sector, has embraced automation (engineering methods) to increase efficiency in terms of quality productivity and boost the quantities of output. The process has obliged this industry to enhance the use of agricultural robots, which are more effective than human resources. However, there are diverse challenges which are associated with the use of these engineering approaches. Unlike other industrial processes and activities, the agricultural environment experiences minimal forces related to structuring and control measures. This is because some of the sophisticated farming practices cannot be subdivided into subsections for particular robot control, which is the same in other industrial processes. Aerial environments in agriculture play a critical role in ensuring the percentage yields of the agricultural inputs at hand. Therefore, proper management of this type of environment through various engineering approaches is significant in agriculture. The paper hence focuses on the management of the aerial environment with engineering approaches for sustainable agricultural greenhouses.

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Background

Various technological pilot plants and established systems are employed in agricultural greenhouses for diverse reasons, such as testing of new systems or launching of working systems. Some of the engineering approaches which are often applicable in the greenhouses are robotic systems, smart agricultural computing techniques, and the complete automation of the entire greenhouses (Mongkon et al., 2013). All these engineering methods applied in agriculture have individual parameters to control with the whole greenhouse setup. These agricultural parameters include humidity control, temperature regulations, nutrient factor ratios, monitoring of the planted crops, pest and other parasites control and treatments, and supplies of necessary materials. The use of these methods has seen the agricultural sector make tremendous improvements using minimum costs of inputs with maximum outputs. The paper focuses on the use of various engineering approaches, such as photovoltaic solar panels, the use of MATLAB engineering software for greenhouse activity regulations, use of Matlab-Simulink for controlling microclimates, and adoption of zero-liquid-discharge greenhouse models.

Literature Review

Greenhouse development emerged as a strategy of increasing agricultural productivity despite the challenging and adverse climatic and environmental constraints and other bottlenecks associated with the aerial environment. Some of the climatic parameters that affect the quality and quantity of agricultural output are humidity, temperature, wind speed, pressure, and soil fertility. Engineering approaches used in countering these adverse effects include monitoring of aerial environment using technological ways (Vila and Cabello, 2014). Drones have been of great significance tools for the aerial environment in agriculture for various purposes. They are for crop and entire greenhouse surveillance to identify "hot spots," which requires human attention due to inversion of maybe pests or lack of nutrients. The main breakthrough, however, is the use of solar thermal simulation methods, which engulf the majority of greenhouse challenges (Taki, Rohani and Rahmati-Joneidabad, 2018).

Another effective engineering approach is the use of greenhouses that are integrated with photovoltaic cells. These are self-dependent greenhouses that provide the crops ideal conditions that favor effective and healthy growth and development. It achieves these attributes through the utilization of embedded photovoltaic (PV/T) panels, which uses the solar rays from the sun (Salah, Fath, Negm, Akrami, and Javadi, 2019). Furthermore, these have the technological ability to regulate the humidification and dehumidification process within the greenhouse hence providing absolute levels of humidity for the agricultural products in the greenhouse (Hassan et al., 2016). The photovoltaic panels used in the greenhouse are also responsible for the generation of electricity, which is again an essential item in the provision of light and warmth when needed within the system. Engineering software such are MATLAB is significantly crucial in the formulation and implementation of the entire system.

Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: Greenhouses with managed Aerial Environment using Engineering Methods

Matlab-Simulink technology has further contributed significantly to the dynamics in the agricultural sector. It is an engineering approach that controls microclimates within the greenhouse system (Ali, Aridhi, and Mami, 2015). It enhances standardization of normal condition by using sensors which detect variations and acute fluctuations of these microclimate aspects like temperature. The strategy is essential in monitoring greenhouses in the regions which are intensively affected by changes in climate and resulting in summer and winter seasons (Taki, Rohani and Rahmati-Joneidabad, 2018). The latter agricultural method has the capability of detecting these climatic variations and triggers the necessary cause of action to happen either through the increase or decrease in temperatures within the greenhouse setup (Ali, Aridhi and Mami, 2015). Such engineering technology results in a regular cycle of agricultural productivity.

The development of a zero-liquid-discharge greenhouse model is one of the latest engineering innovations in the agricultural field. With the increasing effect of global warming on farming practices, new engineering models of greenhouses have been designed to curb such negative implications. An absolute example of such models is a stand-alone greenhouse with stringent operating conditions (Porcheron et at., 2019). It can harvest and store rainwater for irrigational purposes, but the system is highly water-tight, thus providing a conducive environment for the crops in the greenhouse to thrive (Taki, Rohani, and Rahmati-Joneidabad, 2018). This kind of agricultural model is considered highly effective by the farmers due to high productivity with minimum crop maintenance costs. Low costs of production with high yield methods in agriculture like any other industry are effective production methods.

Summary and Conclusion

From the literature review, the management of engineering methods of agricultural production enhances quality greenhouse output with minimum costs of production. Utilization of all the discussed technological methods in this field is productive and profitable to both the farmer and the consumer due to high-quality products. Management of the aerial environment with engineering approaches for sustainable agricultural greenhouses through the following techniques is significant to the farmers. Some of these approaches are the use of photovoltaic solar panels, the use of MATLAB engineering software for greenhouse activity regulations, the use of Matlab-Simulink for controlling microclimates, and the adoption of zero-liquid-discharge greenhouse models. They make the agricultural processes relatively easy with no or minimum hum supervisions since the automation of the greenhouse systems results in a self-dependence state.

In conclusion, it is absolutely clear from the literature that agricultural practice can be improved through the application of advanced engineering approaches. Greenhouses are gradually replacing the traditional methods of farming, which is a positive trend in the sector. Since automation is more straightforward in the greenhouse than large scale farming, the adoption of modern methods of agriculture and management of aerial environment within the greenhouse systems results in the production of sufficient of farm produce. Therefore, food security is enhanced through the adoption of effective engineering approaches discussed above in the greenhouses. The process, on the other hand, is effective in boosting the economy of a given country or region.

References

Ali, R.B., Aridhi, E., and Mami, A., 2015, December. A dynamic model of an agricultural greenhouse using Matlab-Simulink environment. In 2015 16th International Conference on Sciences and Techniques of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering (STA) (pp. 346-350). IEEE.

Hassan, G.E., Salah, A.H., Fath, H., Elhelw, M., Hassan, A. and Saqr, K.M., 2016. Optimum operational performance of a new stand-alone agricultural greenhouse with integrated-TPV solar panels. Solar Energy, 136, pp.303-316.

Mongkon, S., Thapa, S., Namprakai, P., and Pratinthong, N., 2013. Cooling performance and condensation evaluation of horizontal earth tube system for the tropical greenhouse. Energy and Buildings, 66, pp.104-111.

Porcheron, M., Akrami, M., Javadi, A., Farmani, R., Negm, A., and Fath, H.E.S., 2019. A stand-alone Zero-Liquid-Discharge greenhouse model with rainwater harvesting capability.

Salah, A.H., Fath, H.E.S., Negm, A., Akrami, M., and Javadi, A., 2019. Modeling of a novel Stand-Alone, Solar Driven Agriculture Greenhouse Integrated With Photo Voltaic/Thermal (PV/T) Panels.

Taki, M., Rohani, A., and Rahmati-Joneidabad, M., 2018. Solar thermal simulation and applications in the greenhouse. Information Processing in Agriculture, 5(1), pp.83-113.

Vila, E., and Cabello, T., 2014. Biosystems engineering applied to greenhouse pest control. In Biosystems Engineering: Biofactories for Food Production in the Century XXI (pp. 99-128). Springer, Cham.