Automation of an Off-Grid Vertical Farming System to Optimize Power Consumption

The world’s resources are finite. As the population increases, these resources must be better utilized to maintain or improve living standards. One area ripe for improvement is agricultural farming. Farms use the most available freshwater and vast swaths of land. Additionally, fertilizer runoff pollutes nearby rivers and reservoirs. One solution is vertical farms. Vertical farms can be stacked on top of each other, reducing land, water, and fertilizer usage significantly. However, this comes at the trade-off of increased energy usage. Renewable energy sources can supply the power, reducing the compromise, but they are unreliable, and their power production varies hourly and by season. An automated system can adapt to the changing power availability without harming plants because plants acclimate to a wide variety of growing conditions in nature. This research focused on automating a vertical farm system to adjust to weather variations without experiencing blackouts while maximizing power usage and improving growing conditions for the plants in the systems.