KIDSCODEKIDSCODE
  • 立即报名
  • 学校
  • 特许经营
  • 为什么是我们?
    • 关于我们
    • 我们的教学方法
    • 他们这么说
    • 博客
  • 购买套件
    • Hardware Kits
    • Robotics
    • Education Bundles
    • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • 联系我们
    • Cart

      0
  • 立即报名
  • 学校
  • 特许经营
  • 为什么是我们?
    • 关于我们
    • 我们的教学方法
    • 他们这么说
    • 博客
  • 购买套件
    • Hardware Kits
    • Robotics
    • Education Bundles
    • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • 联系我们

Blog

  • 主页
  • Blog
  • The Internet Of Things Meets Hydroponics: How To Grow A Better Vegetable

The Internet Of Things Meets Hydroponics: How To Grow A Better Vegetable

  • Posted by KidsCode
  • Categories Blog, IoT
  • Date March 20, 2017
  • Comments 0 comment

About 60 miles from the site of the deadly 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima prefecture, inside a former silicon chip manufacturing facility owned by the Japanese computer company Fujitsu, a small team of highly trained engineers are working on one of the company’s hottest new products. Fujitsu’s marketing team claims it’s already proving a hit with their oldest–and youngest–consumers. It’s so popular, in fact, it’s probably just the first in a long line of related Fujitsu products. The product is lettuce.

Like the giant monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, this new head of lettuce is simultaneously a product of this factory’s past and the future. Fujitsu is a space-age R&D innovator with sprawling, specialized factories. But several of its facilities, including this one, went dark when the company tightened its belt and reorganized its product lines after the 2008 global financial crisis. Now in the aftermath, it has retrofitted this facilities to serve tomorrow’s vegetable consumers, who will pay for a better-than-organic product, and who enjoy a bowl of iceberg more if they know it was monitored by thousands of little sensors.

FROM WORLD-LEADING TO HYDROPONICS

A year into the project, Fujitsu is now producing between 2,500 and 3,000 heads of a lettuce a day that sell for three times the normal price: The company is using its hydroponic lettuce farm to showcase its “smart” farming technologies, in the hopes of nurturing a new agribusiness.

The project is the outgrowth of a company-wide reorganization following the 2008 financial crisis, after which Fujitsu decreased its number of product lines from nine to six. Originally built in 1967, the building where the company is now growing lettuce was once the largest transistor factory in the world. Over the years, Fujitsu expanded, buying up three other buildings and the remainder of the industrial park, bringing its total footprint in the area to roughly 260,000 square meters.

After the post-Lehman reorganization, however, workers stripped the building of much of its machinery, left a “mere skeleton, just a concrete box,” says Kohji Nomaki, director of planning for Fujitsu’s Advanced Agricultural Division. Still, the facility retained all that was needed to seal it off from bacteria and dust. Semiconductor factories are specially outfitted with filtration devices to create a clean room environment, because “just one piece of dust on a semiconductor will make it usable,” explains Nomaki.

At the facility, located in the traditional Japanese city of Aizuwakamatsu, long rows of lettuce trays are stacked seven levels high, each bathed in iridescent hues of ultraviolet light. Workers in full-body white, protective suits move among the rows carrying tablets and checking on sensors arrayed throughout the 2,000-meter-square facility.

“The same members who used to manage the clean room for semiconductor production are the members that are managing clean room for vegetable plant,” Nomaki said. “It’s a very elaborate filtration system. So they have knowledge how to realize this optimized environment for production.”

To showcase its smart-farming technologies, Fujitsu has equipped the space with more than 100 sensors that monitor temperature, moisture, CO2, air current, lighting, fertilizer flow, and the pH of the soil. Readings are uploaded to the company’s latest cloud platform, allowing the teams of engineers in their suits to monitor them on Fujitsu tablets. It’s the Internet of things in a completely antiseptic space.

Dominque Betaz, a Florida-based agricultural researcher who currently serves as head of new product development at Pathway Biologists, notes that there’s a need for new products that integrate information from sensors, and to make them user friendly. The market for systems to maximize greenhouse yields, he adds, is growing overseas. China, he notes, has 2 million acres under greenhouse.

“In cold countries where you have to feed people year round and you have limited space, like Japan and Holland, this type of system makes a lot of sense,” he says. “For just a couple thousand dollars worth of monitors, you can markedly increase your yield.”

BY ADAM PIORE, taken from https://www.fastcompany.com/3032307/the-internet-of-things-meets-hydroponics-how-to-grow-a-better-vegetable

Tag:Blog, IoT, Technology, WordPress

  • 参加:
KidsCode

Previous post

Makey Makey Will Make You Love The “Internet Of Things”
March 20, 2017

Next post

4 Benefits Of Learning Programming At A Young Age
25 March, 2017

You may also like

  • thumbnail_Thor Hammer
    Make Your Own Contactless Thermometer
    12 March, 2020
  • thermal
    BUILD YOUR OWN INFRARED THERMAL CAMERA TODAY!
    6 March, 2020
  • Cover Photo
    Little Computational Thinkers
    2 March, 2020

Leave A Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

− 5 = 5

分类

  • 学期课程课程
  • 假期课程

我们提供什么

  • Micro Controller IoT Learning Kit $199.00 选择选项
  • Makey Makey Workshop Kit $78.00 选择选项
  • micro:bit Workshop Kit $99.00 选择选项

最新文章

Make Your Own Contactless Thermometer
12Mar2020
BUILD YOUR OWN INFRARED THERMAL CAMERA TODAY!
06Mar2020
Little Computational Thinkers
02Mar2020
KidsCode.sg

(65) 6227 7996

learn@kidscode.sg

公司

  • 关于我们
  • 为什么是我们?
  • 联系我们
  • Terms & Conditions (Courses/Training)
  • Terms & Conditions (Website)

Links

  • 博客
  • 立即报名
  • 购买套件
  • 隐私政策

跟随我们


This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT