Centralized Plant Conveyor System for Urban Farming Automation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current farming methods face challenges such as high land usage, cost, and inefficiency in automating repetitive plant processes, particularly in urban areas, where multiple resources and installations are required, limiting scalability and flexibility in growing various plant types simultaneously.
Innovation Solution
A centralized system where plants on a conveyor move sequentially to a central resource for repetitive processes like watering and nutrient administration, reducing resource movement and duplication, and allowing for multiple plant types to be grown simultaneously.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If resources are positioned all over the farm space for every plant process, then plant processes can be executed at each location, but it results in multiple installations of resources and high cost
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of moving resources to each plant location, the patent inverts the approach by moving plants to a central resource location. The conveyor system transports plant containers to a centralized processing area where water, nutrients, and other resources are supplied once, eliminating the need for multiple distributed resource installations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines multiple resource delivery functions into a single centralized location. Water dispensers, nutrient administrators, and other resource supply mechanisms are consolidated at one place, serving all plants that pass through the conveyor system, thereby reducing the total number of resource installations required.
2Ease of operation
If resources are moved to each plant location for every process, then plant processes can be executed, but it is tedious and time-consuming work
Solution Approach 1:
The patent reverses the traditional approach by instead of moving resources to plants, it moves plants to resources. The conveyor system automatically transports plant containers to the centralized resource location, eliminating the time-consuming manual or mechanical movement of water, nutrients, and other resources to each plant location.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables automated self-service where the conveyor system automatically transports plants to the resource dispensing location, and the centralized resources automatically supply water and nutrients to plants as they pass by, eliminating the need for continuous human intervention or complex resource transport mechanisms.
3Ease of operation
If multiple water sprinklers/dispensers are setup to span the land area, then watering can be provided to all plants, but it is cost prohibitive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple watering functions into a single centralized water dispenser location. Instead of having numerous sprinklers or dispensers distributed across the farm area, one water dispenser is positioned at the central processing location where all plants are brought on the conveyor, significantly reducing the number of water delivery devices required.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of distributing water delivery infrastructure across the entire farm area, the patent inverts the approach by concentrating water delivery at a single central location and moving plants to that location via conveyor, thereby reducing the infrastructure cost while maintaining complete watering coverage.
4Productivity
If farming is done in rural areas with large land, then large-scale farming is possible, but it adds to transport costs and air pollution for city dwellers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from horizontal land expansion to vertical space utilization by implementing multi-story greenhouse structures. Plants are grown on multiple levels with conveyor systems that operate across different floors, enabling large-scale farming within a compact vertical footprint that can be located in urban areas, thereby eliminating long-distance transport requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The farming system is segmented into multiple independent story levels, each capable of supporting plant growth and processing. This segmentation allows the farm to be distributed across vertical space rather than requiring contiguous horizontal land, enabling urban location while maintaining productive capacity.
Data Source
AI summary
Plants are positioned in containers on a conveyor having conveyor rails. The conveyor rails pass into a radiation space above a roof of a building, along an exterior side of the building and into a processing space below the roof of the building. One or more of the conveyor rails in the radiation space may be supported by a frame. A part of the conveyor extends horizontally above the roof of the building, and another part of the conveyor extends vertically along the exterior side of the building. Water pipelines and a dispenser are provided in the processing space and not in the radiation space, the dispenser being positioned below the roof of the building. The conveyor moves the plants between the radiation space and the processing space during the plants' lives. The frame may be moved to raise or reposition the conveyer in the radiation space.