Are you that enthusiastic researcher that likes to work on modelling and control, and apply it to improve processes in agriculture and food production?
This PhD is part of the SkyHigh project (
https://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/programmes/ttw/perspectief/2019-sky-high.html ). Together with a consortium of an inter-disciplinary team of researchers and industrialists, we started a challenging research project with the aim to optimize the crop production process in a so called vertical farm.
The aim of this PhD project is to design an optimally performing vertical farm, in a modelling and control study. Within the project, you will work in a multi-disciplinary team consisting of fellow PhDs with various backgrounds such as plant sciences, modelling, and artificial intelligence.
The research challengesVertical farming is a novel technology where plants are grown in many stacked layers with LED light. It is a secure and sustainable route to provide cities with fresh food. The overall challenge is to grow crops with high yield, high quality (long shelf life, high nutrition, and good taste and consequently a product with a higher price), in an energy efficient way (low energy use, low energy costs), against low investment costs. These objectives are partly conflicting; for example, high yield requires high light input while avoiding extreme humidity, which increases energy use. A balance has to be sought to weigh the importance of the individual objectives, and the way they are affected by changing settings in lighting, temperature, CO2 concentration, and air humidity. Furthermore, the importance given to each of the objectives, varies per grower. The scientific challenge is to create an algorithm that adjusts the climate settings in such a way that costs, energy use, yield, and quality are well balanced according to the grower's preferences. This requires an integrated model that relates the effects of climate settings on yield, quality, energy, and costs. Furthermore, optimization requires an algorithm that is flexible depending on how individual growing companies weigh the importance of energy, yield, quality, and costs.
In this project, you will optimize the performance of a vertical farm with respect to crop growth, crop quality, and energy use, by controlling indoor climate variables such as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and lighting. Two main steps can be distinguished:
- Modelling the dynamic interactions between climate variables and crop response to changing those variables, as well as the relation between climate control and energy use.
- Designing ways to optimize climate settings for optimal crop production, that is, high yield, with low energy costs and high crop quality.
Within our research consortium there is already a vast amount of knowledge on crop growth, crop quality, climate dynamics, and energy use, and this will be expanded throughout the project. Also a number of companies is present to represent the state of the art, as well as the challenges, in industry. This provides a unique opportunity for developing a state of the art design that is tailored to industrial needs, and embedded in a solid scientific background.