Executive summary 1

Justification 1

Analysis of prior solutions. 7

Executive summary

Gardening management can be prohibitively complex and expensive for the amateur. New england specifically provides unique challenges to these gardeners due to our temperate climate. Since the 20th century, technologies such as hydroponics, greenhouses, and tissue culture have increased the productivity of agriculture. Hydroponics, according to ISHS “reduces land requirements for crops by 75% or more, and water use by 90%.” Making these technologies more accessible for the 71 million Amateur gardeners in the US (according to the census.gov), as well as the small farms, would mean less dependence on outdated, inefficient, and environmentally harmful technologies, as well as a more distributed and resilient food infrastructure. 

Justification

Sources

• On small to medium scales hydroponics is more cost effective than a pure greenhouse. Hydroponics traditionally has a larger initial investment making it prohibitively expensive for small scale systems. This validates my initial idea, that there is too high an investment cost in setting up hydroponics. This article is a review, meaning it inherently aggregates many other sources into one larger source. If one of the smaller sources was unreliable it may have an affect on the final analysis. 

• Implementing hydroponics systems can have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of growing high value crops, and reduce its environmental impact. Likewise, hydroponics can be used to increase the cash yield of certain plants. Hydroponics may not be suitable for cereal crops, however. The ISHS is a payed journal, and is run for horticulturalists, so the figures may be inflated. Researching the compared efficiencies of different specific plants may provide more insight. 

Currently, the dataset for these graphs is quite small, but hopefully in coming weeks it will be grow to be more substantial. These graphs prove that there exists a market for reducing the learning curve of gardening. Making this product intuitive is important.

Cost and reliability are the most important features for a product like this. Aesthetics are not of concern.

Prior solutions

Searching for commercial products, as well as looking at open source solutions for greenhouses throughout the years has led to many different types of solutions being considered. After considering the pros, cons, and cost of these solutions i've always found them lacking. Because personal greenhouses are, right now, a fairly small market it means that many of the products are designed for industrial applications. Speaking to a mentor made it clear that there exists a market for simplifying industrial tools for the home hobbyist, through examples like 3d printers and home computers. Automation is one way to simplify the management of greenhouses and gardens for the average hobbyist. Therefor a market exists for small scale garden automation solutions.

 One example of an automation solution marketed towards more industrial applications is the “The Arduino PLC.”

A plc (Programmable Logic Controller) Is good for industrial applications where individual wires can be run to be controlled by a central system reliably. This architecture simply doesn't work well in a small greenhouse. The inclement conditions inside a greenhouse or outdoors also raise concerns with the reliability of not specially designed or conditioned computers. The cost, complexity, and power consumption also make it unsuitable for a small greenhouse, more specifically in off-grid applications. Programming a PLC may be too much work for the average gardener. For a small greenhouse or garden a distributed, low power, rugged internet of things, a network of distributed sensors and controllers,  solution is needed.

A korean patent exists for an IOT greenhouse control system, which uses proven technology like Zigbee for WLAN communication for greenhouses. For the purposes of small, distributed, low power sensors a system like WLAN is overly complex and power hungry. Modern systems such as Lora would be significantly cheaper and less power hungry, while still being more than capable of transmitting relevant data.

Another example of an overly complex solution is this “Smart hose.”(for some reason I couldn't insert the image) By being overly expensive for scaling, and not integrating with a unified system, this product cant be useful in a unified solution. By combining off the shelf components and proven techniques, a more versatile and rugged solution could be achieved. 

One example of an existing solution that does work well for something similar is Home Assistant

. 

I personally use home assistant because it works well for home automation. Home assistant is versatile, thanks to its plugin system, meaning it can integrate different products into one unified ecosystem. It also achieves home automation coding in a simple and intuitive way, meaning more people are likely to use it.

Another example of a product that sells to this market is the nutraponics tower garden

. 

This product greatly simplifies the technique of hydroponics, making it much less complex for a hobbyist to get involved with. This system also does make efficient use of space. What this product gains in simplicity it greatly lacks in versatility and cost. Something that costs almost 1000 dollars should be able to grow an appreciable amount of food, which this system simply cant. Likewise, this system lacks the versatility to adjust parameters like PH, Nutrient solution, and other important factors in hydroponics, meaning growing certain flowers would be very difficult, making these off the shelf solutions less robust than homema

de. 

https://extension.umn.edu/how/small-scale-hydroponics https://extension.unh.edu/resource/hydroponics-home. The main limitations of hydroponic systems are nutrient balancing, oxygenation of the nutrient solution, and limiting algae growth. Designing IOT systems for monitoring and controlling these parameters would make homemade hydroponics more approachable for amateurs. 

Places like https://climapod.com/small-greenhouse-kits/ and https://mulberrygreenhouses.com/collections/greenhouse-kits show that there is a market for personal greenhou

ses. 

Currently off the shelf greenhouse solutions are prohibitively expensive and unscalable. An unscalable solution cant grow with a gardeners needs requiring large amounts of investment for very little benefit. The average hobbyist cant spend the price of a used car on buying a greenhouse, in addition to heating it during the winter, especially if it doesn't have enough square footage to store their potted plants over the winter and start new s

eeds. 

An assessment of the feasibility of “smart” hydroponics from mdpi shows that hydroponics monitoring was feasible with inexpensive sensors. Building upon these findings and designing a framework for automated growth, and integrating machine learning with sensor data  would make hydroponics more manageable for individuals. 

Analysis of prior solutions.

Complexity seems to be the key factor in determining a solutions practicality for hobbyists. Designing a nutrient film hydroponics system is simply too much work and investment for many, and as such reducing this complexity (and therefore cost) would help to alleviate these issues. Choosing the simplest and most robust solutions to all of these, and iterating on them would result in the cheapest, and yet most robust solutions. 

Kratky hydroponics is the simplest form of hydroponics, and as such is very cheap and in theory robust. That being said, it also has issues with the three main aspects of hydroponics. Developing on the Kratky method could help alleviate these issues through things like IOT solutions, and experimenting with different approaches. Likewise creating a standardized, simple, and robust, design for a greenhouse starting from the most basic design principles would create a robust solution. These robust solutions make it more and more practical for hobbyists to get involved in gardening reducing the investment and learning curves involved. 

My main target audience is hobbyist gardeners, and my secondary is general citizens. In theory by reducing the learning curve and investment needed to experiment with modern growth systems hobbyist gardeners benefit, however, making simpler and cheaper solutions more prevalent also benefits the general public as it provides the opportunity for more individuals to get involved with the hobby. I will specifically be targeting new england, as many of the issues we face are specific to our geography, such as greenhouse heating and cooling, and specific biota. 

Requirements

Market 

Current and potential Gardening hobbyists who want a robust solution for gardening automation and management. 

The product must be cheap enough that it can be deployed widely with little investment. The product must also be versatile enough to work in a number of different situations. New england weather requires a level of robustness to stand up to temperature swings and wetness. 

Criteria

• Construction cost

  • How expensive is it to construct

  • How much of that construction cost is passed onto the consumer

  • Lowest required tolerances

• Retrofit Ability 

  • How easy is it to fit into existing gardens

  • How easily can the product be upgraded, rather than fully superceded

• Profile 

  • How large and heavy is it physically

  • How easy is it to fit into existing gardens not initially designed for it 

• Easy of use

  • How difficult is it for someone new to

    • Program

    • Deploy

    • Monitor 

• Aesthetics

  • Can it fit into flower gardens seamlessly?

  • What color is least obtrusive

  • Material finish/tolerances to look acceptable

  • Is it heavy enough to not feel “cheap”

• Ability

  • How accurately can it measure/control 

  • How many different things can it interface with seamlessly

• Modularity/flexibility

  • How much of the software is controllable through plugins

  • How easily can the system be rearranged

  • How can the system integrate with existing infrastructure

• Repairability 

  • How easily can the product be repaired, if at all

• Power efficiency 

  • How power efficient are the circuits used

  • Important in off grid applications

• Protoypeable 

  • How easily and cheaply can the product be prototyped vs produced

    • 3d printing vs injection molding

Constraints

• Off grid capable

  • Cant require mains power

  • Cant require hard data lines

    • Many greenhouses and gardens in small farms have no access to AC power or Data.

• Reliable under inclement conditions

  • Temperature stable from −40f to 107f

  • Water/dust proof - ipx7 

  • Reliably transmit/receive during rain

    • If these products are used outside they have to be able to endure harsh new england weather conditions.

• Comply with regulations

  • FDA 

    • Food safe plastic

  • FCC 

    • Comply with radio regulations

    • Cant require HAM license to operate

  • EPA

    • Internal components cant contact soil

• Interface with both Analog and Digital peripherals

• Off the shelf components/ solutions

  • Cheap proven components for PCB design

  • USB - C for data/power

  • Lora for radio

    • Off the shelf components reduce cost and development time.

Works cited 

SIMPLIFIED HYDROPONICS TO REDUCE GLOBAL HUNGER. (n.d.). Www.actahort.org. https://www.actahort.org/books/554/554_31.htm

A Review on Hydroponics and the Technologies Associated for Medium- and Small-Scale Operations. (2022). ProQuest, 12(5), 646. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12050646