Vertical farming monitoring: how does it work and how much does it cost?

Morella, Paula ; Lambán, María Pilar (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Royo, Jesús (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Sánchez, Juan Carlos

Resumen: Climate change, resource scarcity, and a growing world population are some of the problems facing traditional agriculture. For this reason, new cultivation systems are emerging, such as vertical farming. This is based on indoor cultivation, which is not affected by climatic conditions. However, vertical farming requires higher consumption of water and light, since in traditional agriculture those resources are free. Vertical cultivation requires the use of new technologies and sensors to reduce water and energy consumption and increase its efficiency. The sensorization of these systems makes it possible to monitor and evaluate their performance in real time. In addition, vertical farming faces economic uncertainty since its profitability has not been studied in depth. This article studies the most important variables when monitoring a vertical farming system and proposes the sensors to be used in the data acquisition system. In addition, this study presents a cost model for the installation of this type of system. This cost model is applied to a case study to evaluate the profitability of installing this type of infrastructure. The results obtained suggest that the investment made in VF installations could be profitable in a period of three to five years.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.3390/s23073502

Año: 2023

Publicado en: Sensors 23, 7 (2023), 3502 [12 pp.]
ISSN: 1424-8220

Factor impacto JCR: 3.4 (2023)

Categ. JCR: CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL rank: 34 / 106 = 0.321 (2023) - Q2 - T1
Categ. JCR: INSTRUMENTS & INSTRUMENTATION rank: 24 / 76 = 0.316 (2023) - Q2 - T1
Categ. JCR: ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC rank: 122 / 353 = 0.346 (2023) - Q2 - T2

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 7.3 - Instrumentation (Q1) - Information Systems (Q1) - Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Q1) - Analytical Chemistry (Q1) - Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics (Q1) - Biochemistry (Q2)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.786 - Instrumentation (Q1) - Analytical Chemistry (Q1) - Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics (Q1) - Information Systems (Q2) - Medicine (miscellaneous) (Q2) - Biochemistry (Q2) - Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Q2)

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Ing. Procesos Fabricación (Dpto. Ingeniería Diseño Fabri.)