Control Environment Plant Production Systems Based On Decision Support

Controlled Environment Plant Production System (CEPPS) is a system which can adjust the environment of plant growth by using different monitoring and controlling devices in order to supply optimized growth conditions for plants.CEPPS have a number of research objects. In this paper, we focus on greenhouse. There are a great variety of greenhouses nowadays, and their control effects are different from each other. Usually they have the weakness of not being able to regulate environmental factors. Moreover, the setting of the control parameters of the greenhouse are often based on the personal experiences, thus its accuracy is not enough and can not be integrated into crop models. Up to now, researches centre on the study and application of greenhouse environmental control technology, while the researches of the capital budget allocation and crop production economic optimal theory are uncommon. In order to solve the problems mentioned above, we propose the Controlled Environment Plant Production System based on Decision Support (CEPPS/DS).It is a software system which provides support for decision-making on a series of production management problems, and introduces the theory of decision support into the process of controlled environment plant production.The component of CEPPS/DS includes the model management module, the decision-making module and the system setting module.In the model management module, the main storage mode is non-program, based on the database technology, but partially, program is still used to express the model. The model data are stored in MS ACCESS, forming the model database. With the ADO technology, we implement the model data extraction, accessing and updating.In the decision-making module, we adopt a three-base architecture, which is composed of database, method base and model base. Its logical structure is made up of database system, model-base system, method base system and interact UI. The decision-making module is made up of three parts:the capital budget allocation decision-making part, the greenhouse environmental control decision-making part and the crop production economic optimal decision-making part. The capital budget allocation decision-making part can get reasonable capital allocation and optimal input plan by listing items available and combining with greenhouse construction plan. The greenhouse environmental control decision-making part uses multiple regression analysis by establishing regression equation between crop photosynthesis rate and the greenhouse temperature, humidity and light intensity,so it can achieve ideal environment control by combining both control costs and crop growth model together, and get optimal environment control program. The crop production economic optimal decision-making part uses'Volume-Cost-Profit'analysis. By calculating and simulating the status of 'Volume-Cost-Profit'of crop production, it can retrieve optimal relation between production quantity and sale price to achieve the maximization of profit.The function of system setting module includes user management and password modification.The programming and development of CEPPS/DS is based on the structured design theory and modular strategy in order to get high reliability and expansibility. We choose Visual Basic 6.0 as the main development tools to implement the functions of real-time data display, data storage, data query and decision-making. All these modules are running with the organization and coordination of the main program.According to environment control of the greenhouse, crops growth status and the economic input-output ratio, CEPPS/DS can infer and make decisions that are most optimal for funds allocation, crop production and the relation between production yield and sales prices, by applying appropriate knowledge rules. This control system not only reflects the inherent law of crop growth and the management characteristics of greenhouse crop production, providing guidance to agricultural production, but can also take full advantage of computer technology and techno-economic analysis to achieve more effective and feasible decision-making. Therefore, CEPPS/DS is a more ideal, more prospective production management technology.