Technology Overview

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the world earth’s estimate 9.8 billion population will reside in urban centers. In addition, factors such as climate change, limited arable land and pollution will make indoor farming an attractive option. Current technologies used in traditional farming will be inadequate and for Singapore, it will be even more vital to achieve food security with limited resources.

This technology consists of a horticultural LED system that can eventually help to address 2 main concerns of urban farming - operation cost and crop yield. The predictive algorithms are able to predict important lighting information necessary for indoor farming. This is crucial in helping end-users (e.g. farmers) to formulate their own “light” recipe for optimising the growth rate of their crops. It also has analytics features that can assist in analysing DLI, energy costs, etc. for improving crop yield.

The technology owner is seeking partners to collaborate through various modes including technology licensing and test bedding.

Technology Features, Specifications and Advantages

Software functions:

• Personalised configuration
  The software is designed for seamless configuration. It can be configured separately and independently for different shelves. The configuration can be fully automated to cater for different environmental parameters at different time frames or growth phases of the crops.
• Smart analysis
  The software can perform analyses and predict the light recipe that the plant canopy is receiving. Parameters subjected to analysis includes light map, light ratio, etc. This will greatly shorten the time needed for end users to measure these parameters, and hence improve productivity. The software also allows users to set time periods to run pre-set light intensity according to individual desired needs, effectively automating the system.

Potential Applications

The software platform is catered for different plant stages from propagation, growth to flowering at any indoor facilities such as vertical farm, as well as in research centers for crop research and development.

Potential applications include (but not limited to):

• Controlled plants R&D for pharmaceutical use
• Urban food production
• Vertical farms
• Laboratories / research / education institutions
• Hobbyists

Customer Benefit

• Cost saving
• Optimise crop yield
• Reduce R&D time
• Versatility of the lighting for different crops / growth period
• Scalability (dependent on the number of LEDs)
• Wide coverage (~ 2 km indoor)