GOhydro D2.2 - Prototype of Nutrient-content Kit

GOhydro aims at developing a cost-efficient smart-sensing ICT platform capable of monitoring the crops’ health and nutrient content of hydroponically cultivated microgreens in order to optimise the cultivation process and allow the harvest of the best possible products. GOhydro aspires to culminate in the production of a platform that will be a shifting paradigm of how AI-driven technological innovation can become an affordable, accessible-by-all tool applicable to all forms of urban farming. Towards this, the project will produce a multi-modal sensor kit driven by a thorough analysis of nutritional and lighting requirements of microgreens and combine it with a multi-model machine learning solution that will guide growers to optimise microgreens tending in accordance with the environment where their hydroponic unit is installed and operates. In a nutshell, the project aims at creating a form of an easy-to-use e-agronomist which will assist any grower to fine-tune and optimise her hydroponic production.

One of the main technical objectives of the GOhydro project is the development of a Multi-modal Sensor Kit (MMSK) capable of monitoring at pre-determined intervals the environmental factors affecting the hydroponic cultures of microgreens, the quality of the water feeding the plants as well as the nutrient content of the microgreens. This kit has as a main task to collect information about the cultivation conditions and the quality of the microgreens and communicate the relevant information to the mobile application of the agronomist that will notify the user about the health of the crops and provide suggestions about necessary condition arrangements. Towards that end the MMSK is divided into 3 major components: (1) the Crop Heath Sensor Kit (CHSK) responsible for monitoring the temperature, humidity, light intensity at the installation as well as the electroconducitvity and PH of the water in the tank (indicating the quality of the watering), (2) a photonics-based kit that will determine the nutrient content of the microgreens through their pulps (Nutrient-content Kit, NCK), and (3) the communications and storage unit (CSU) that stores and transmits the data collected by the kits to the GOhydro data-driven platform. The MMSK is developed through a dedicated work package (WP2), which has received input from WP1 “Nutrient and environmental needs for microgreens” with regards to the specific parameters that must be monitored for a successful hydroponic installation.

This deliverable entails the development of the second component of the MMSK, namely the Nutrient-content Kit (NCK) and is the outcome of Task 2.2. Even though the actual deliverable D2.2 is a DEMONSTRATOR, this accompanying document analyses how the proprietary photonics-based sensor of NCSRD is explored as an alternative method that may provide indirect information about the nutrient-content of hydroponically-cultivated microgreens. D2.2 contains three basic chapters. The first one describes the underlying concept and hypothesis, the second the laboratory prototype developed and the first experiments with the NCK and the final chapter the future actions necessary for the completion of the system and to the validation of the working hypothesis as well as its possible limitations.