Internet of Things Based Farm Greenhouse Monitor and Alarm Management System

• US 20130093592A1
• Filed: 01/05/2012
• Published: 04/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zehua Lan
• Original Assignee: Zehua Lan
• Inventors: Ma, Lixia, Lan, Zehua
• Granted Patent: US 8,643,495 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/602
• CPC Class Codes: A01G 25/167 Control by humidity of the soil itself or of devices simulating soil or of the atmosphere; Soil humidity sensors
• CPC Class Codes: A01G 9/24 Devices or systems for heating, ventilating, regulating temperature , illuminating, or watering, in greenhouses, forcing-frames, or the like
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 40/25 Greenhouse technology, e.g. cooling systems therefor

Abstract

A farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system based on the Internet of things with real-time monitoring environmental parameters, which is aimed at monitoring and managing the growth of crops in the farm greenhouse, includes mobile inspection devices, data acquisition units, data receiving devices, REID devices and data storage servers. The system can automatically collect such greenhouse environmental parameters as air temperature, air humidity, illumination, soil temperature and soil moisture etc. and also automatically judge the critical value of every parameter and alarm otherwise. It utilizes ZigBee chip integrated wireless sensors and data collecting modules. This system provides inspection devices, which lowers the requirements for practitioners and reduces the cost of automatic management of the farm greenhouse.

Claims

1. A farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system based on the Internet of things comprising:

a mobile inspection device including data receiving units, tag reading modules, storage units, data processing units, data communicating modules, I/O modules, and power supply and reading an electronic tag attached to tag devices in the greenhouse to identify a unique greenhouse and get data of environmental parameters through wireless networks, with the data of environmental parameters saved to judge whether to alarm and alarming once conditions are met, with the mobile inspection device alarming users as what is set in advance, with all of the data of environmental parameters in the mobile device uploaded to data storage servers through Internet so as to be accessed by Internet users; and

a data collecting unit including air temperature and humidity sensors, illumination sensors and soil parameters sensors, which is placed in the greenhouse and real-timely collects the data of environmental parameters and transport the data of environmental parameters to data receiving devices through wireless networks;

wherein the data receiving devices placed in the greenhouse receiving or transferring the data of environmental parameters from the data collecting unit through wireless networks or serial ports;

wherein the tag devices are placed in the greenhouse and identify a specific greenhouse, with the tag reading modules of the mobile inspection device reading information from the specific greenhouse;

wherein the data storage servers, which store all the data of environmental parameters needed to manage the system, provides internet users an interface to access the data of environmental parameters, with users enabled to monitor the environment in which the crops live or manage the system after logging in the server through a user access interface.

2. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mobile inspection device includes the tag reading modules automatically collecting the data from the tag devices in the nearest greenhouse alongside an incepting route to identify a specific greenhouse, wherein the data receiving units send requests to the data receiving device in the greenhouse asking for the environmental parameters data and transfers the received data to the data processing units, wherein the storage units save the data of environmental parameters from the data processing units, wherein the data processing units analyze the environmental parameters received and judges whether to alarm and alarms users when alarming conditions are met, wherein the data communicating modules communicate with outside, with the data processing units sending all kinds of information to the data communicating modules regularly and uploading the data to the data storage servers, wherein the I/O modules get users'"'"' input signals to perform certain operations and to show an interactive graphical interface, wherein the power supply powers the entire mobile inspection device.

3. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system includes a wireless communication between the data collecting unit and the data receiving devices in the greenhouse.

4. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 1 further including a terminal device placed in a large greenhouse, with the terminal device processing the data of environmental parameters coming from the data receiving devices and judging whether the current environment is suitable for crops and playing a song to alarm when the current environment is suitable for crops such that it is very convenient for practitioners to control the greenhouse environmental parameters real-timely.

5. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the data collecting unit includes air temperature and humidity sensors, illumination sensors and distributed soil sensors.

6. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the mobile inspection device, which is decomposed functionally and replaced by fixed devices placed in a solo control room, wherein the fixed devices include a data processing device equivalent to a collection of the data processing units, the storage units, the data communication modules, and the I/O modules in the mobile inspection device and process the data information collected from the data receiving devices and judge whether alarm conditions are met according to the requirements of certain crops planted and alarm practitioner when the requirements are met, wherein the data receiving devices are equivalent to data receiving units in the mobile inspection device and receive or transfer the data of soil temperature and humidity and air temperature and humidity collected from the data collecting unit, with the data transferred to the data processing device by the serial ports, through which the data receiving devices are connected with the data processing device.

7. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the mobile inspection device reads tag information from the tag devices inside the greenhouses to identify a specific greenhouse and connects to the data processing device through mobile communication networks TD-SCDMA to query greenhouse'"'"'s information, with the information collected as a form of a voice broadcast that is provided to inspection practitioners.

8. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 6 further comprising a router, with the router and the data receiving devices connected by Ethernet, with a local area network established by the router, with the router through which the data processing device gets the data of environmental parameters.

9. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 6, wherein the devices include a serial port communication therebetween.

10. The farm greenhouse monitor and alarm management system as claimed in claim 6 further including a real-time monitor unit placed inside the greenhouse, wherein the real-time monitor unit is a timing single chip micyoco with the responsibilities to monitor environmental parameters real-timely, wherein the real-time monitor unit gets the data from the collecting unit and judges whether an alarm conditions are met and sends boot alarm signals to control host through serial cables when the alarm conditions are met, wherein the control host is equivalent to the data processing device and normally turned off and turned on to boot the host system to show alarm messages and alarm practitioners in a pre-set way when the boot alarm signals from the real-time-monitor unit arrives, wherein the control host and the real-time-monitor unit are connected by serial ports or serial to USB port.