Development of an Artificial Intelligent Lighting System for Protected Crops

This article describes the hardware and software development of an artificial lighting system for protected crops. The system consists of a set of lamps, power control circuits and light intensity sensor, which together with a software developed in LabVIEW (R) allow to carry out the control over the amount of energy radiated throughout the cultivation process taking into consideration how this energy is distributed in each photoperiod. All this monitoring process takes place in a computer which is connected to an Arduino MEGA device serves as data acquisition card. To program the operation of the control system an interface is designed that enables the user to input parameters and display the system operating information. It also allows selecting the appropriate control strategy with a choice of selecting a predictive control or PD control system. Both algorithms make use of a mathematical model of the lamps which is responsible for transforming the signals generated by the drivers in digital signals that govern the operation of the implemented electronic system. Finally, the experimental results are analysed in various tests using both control algorithms to show the benefits and disadvantages of each controller.