Design, construction and evaluation of a vertical farming system with automated controller of plant growth environment parameters for developing urban farming

Sedaghat  Hosseini, Morteza; Tarabi, Nazilla; Younesi  Alamouti, Mohamad; Khafajeh, Hamid

doi:10.22059/ijbse.2026.412587.665645

Design, construction and evaluation of a vertical farming system with automated controller of plant growth environment parameters for developing urban farming

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Morteza Sedaghat Hosseini ¹

Nazilla Tarabi ²

Mohamad Younesi Alamouti ³

Hamid Khafajeh ⁴

¹ Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, Imam Khomeini Higher Education Centre; Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran

² Faculty of Agricultural Machinery Engineering- University of Tehran, Karaj-Iran

³ Imam Khomeini Higher Education Centre; Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran.

⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering of Biosystems, Jahrom University, P.O. Box 74135-111, Jahrom, Iran.

10.22059/ijbse.2026.412587.665645

Abstract

A vertical farming system is a method for solving challenges such as climate changes, increasing population and environmental damage. In urban vertical farming, the usage of an automated control system is necessary. So the aim of this study was to design and construct a hydroponic vertical farming system that controlled plant growth parameters in an indoor environment. This system has a control unit of lighting, heating, cooling, air conditioning units and is able to store and send data. The effect of air flow rate of fans on the time of adjustment of temperature and moisture was studied to choose the optimum setting of heating and air conditioning units. The data of sensors was recorded in 24 hr. The results confirmed that there is no significant difference in the air flow rates of inlet fans for reducing temperature and 101 cfm was suggested. It was observed that there was a significant difference (p<0.01) in the states of lighting unit (on/off) at the time of reducing temperature. Results of ANOVA showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.01) between fan rotating speeds for setting the moisture at range of 50% to 60% and the optimum air flow rate was at 117 cfm. The data of air temperature and the moisture of the vertical greenhouse in 24hr showed that the automated control system can set the temperature and the moisture in the optimum range. RMSE for weight, height and width were 2.45 to 4.54 which showed suitable performance of the system.

Keywords

Vertical faming

Urban farming

Hydroponic, Automated control

Subjects