Wichitwechkarn Vijja, Rohde William, Choudhary Ruchi
University of Cambridge, Engineering Dept, Trumpington St, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, United Kingdom.
HardwareX. 2023 Dec 5;16:e00497. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2023.e00497. eCollection 2023 Dec.
The Modular Automated Crop Array Online System (MACARONS) is a scalable, customisable and open-sourced platform designed for plant care, monitoring, and transportation. It offers specific dosing for individual plants, automated data logging of temperature, humidity, and images, and custom behaviours programmable in Python. Monitoring and control of the system is achieved through a web-interface. The system was validated by autonomously caring for five lettuce plants over a five-week period. This was done indoors under artificial lighting and uncontrolled ambient conditions. The system is estimated to perform the tasks required 30% faster than a human operator and can handle payloads of up to 5 kg with a maximum footprint of 750 mm × 500 mm. The validated system supports 12 payloads and can be easily scaled to accommodate more. The designs are released and meets the requirements of CERN-OSH-W, which includes step-by-step graphical build instructions and can be built at a cost of GBP 2241.72 (USD 2793.82). The system aims to provide cost-effective automation to reduce labour costs and provide precise control of irrigation and nutrients. The current system is limited by the dosing time and the space-use efficiency. We provided future directions and modifications that can be made to address this.
模块化自动作物阵列在线系统（MACARONS）是一个可扩展、可定制的开源平台，用于植物护理、监测和运输。它为单株植物提供特定剂量，自动记录温度、湿度和图像数据，并可通过Python编程实现自定义行为。该系统通过网络界面进行监控和控制。该系统在为期五周的时间里自主照料五株生菜进行了验证。这是在室内人工照明和不受控制的环境条件下完成的。据估计，该系统执行所需任务的速度比人工操作快30%，能够处理高达5千克的 payload，最大占地面积为750毫米×500毫米。经过验证的系统支持12个payload，并且可以轻松扩展以容纳更多。这些设计已发布，符合CERN-OSH-W的要求，其中包括逐步的图形化构建说明，建造成本为2241.72英镑（2793.82美元）。该系统旨在提供具有成本效益的自动化，以降低劳动力成本，并提供对灌溉和养分的精确控制。当前系统受给药时间和空间利用效率的限制。我们提供了未来的方向和可以进行的修改以解决此问题。
