2017 4th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science

Intelligent Environment Management System

for Controlled Horticulture

Meonghun Lee Haengkon Kim Hyun Yoe*

Dept. of Agricultural Engineering, School of Information Technology Dept. of Information and Communication Eng.,
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences Catholic University of Daegu Sunchon National University
Korea, Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Republic of
leemh5544@gmail.com hangkon@cu.ac.kr yhyun@sunchon.ac.kr

Abstract— IoT / Cloud / Big data / Mobile (ICBM) is a new onment Management System for Controlled Horticulture)
technology paradigm that merges IoT, cloud, big data, and system proposed in this paper is shown in Fig. 1. The
mobile technologies. In this study, we designed and implemented controlled horticulture environment monitoring system is
a smart farm environment management system that can collect largely divided by function, into an environmental information
and monitor information on crop growth utilizing ICBM collection unit, a facility control unit, and the IEMS-CH
technology. The wireless system proposed in this paper not only platform.
collects environmental data from the inside of a vast controlled
horticulture and controls the controlled horticulture facilities but
also enhances energy efficiency through effective management of
IoT sensor network topology. The system enhances convenience
by remotely monitoring and controlling smart farm
environmental information while establishing a database that
enables big data analysis in the cloud to optimize the
environment for crop growing. In this paper, we designed and
implemented the dual stack gateway architecture for efficient
topology management that sensor node supports COAP protocol.

Keywords— Agricultural system; IoT; Dual stack gateway

I. INTRODUCTION
ICT will enable the systematic management and analysis of
both agricultural cultivation and farming data in order to
enhance quality and productivity and will raise the marketable
quality of agricultural products by establishing a database for
production and retail information that includes information on
the product origin, seeding period, use of agricultural pesticides,
and shipping date. Moreover, laying out an exchange system
for sharing information on optimal production conditions for
agricultural production (e.g., temperature, humidity, and
illumination), details (e.g., seeding period and shipping date),
and agricultural market conditions can contribute greatly to the
enhancement of rural income.
Applying such ICT to a farm is referred to as “Smart
Farm,” which is established through a platform that unifies IoT,
cloud, big data and mobile (ICBM) technologies [1-3]. The
integration of these four technologies in diverse industrial areas
to form smart technologies has given birth to a new platform
called the ICBM platform. An investigation of these
technologies can provide an outlook on smart agriculture.
II. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
The configuration of the IEMS-CH (Intelligent Envir-
* Corresponding author
Fig. 1. IEMS-CH: Intelligent Environment Management System for
Controlled Horticulture
A. Environmental Information Collection Unit
With the purpose of collecting environmental information
inside the controlled horticulture, the environmental
information collection unit measures the indoor environmental
conditions (temperature, humidity, illumination) through
sensors embedded in the system and saves the values to the DB
(Database), working together with a facility control system
inside the controlled horticulture [4, 5]. The environmental
information collection unit consists of a sensor node to which
all sensors are connected and a gateway that delivers the data
sent from the sensor node through wired or wireless
connections to the DB or management server. The sensor node
and gateway are designed with the same circuit, and the sensor
node is structured to equip the sensor interface through an
external sensor connector. Control of all functions of the sensor
node and collection of environmental information can be done
through an MCU (Micro Controller Unit) control unit, and
information on operational status can be shown through the
sensor node LED (Light Emitting Diode) so that users can
easily recognize the status [6, 7].

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TABLE I. SPECIFICATION OF CONTROLLED HORTICULTURE FACILITY

CONTROL SERVICE

Category Details
Viewing of all sensor information
Information on internal & external growth
Growth environment
environment Monitoring of remote controlled horticulture
monitoring status
Verification of sensor status information
Sensor node data
Growth Ventilation control
environment Curtain control
control Fan control
Sensor management
Wireless system
management Sensor network management
Fig. 2. IoT sensor node structure for collecting environmental information

B. Facility Control Unit C. IEMS-CH Flatform

The facility control unit is responsible for controlling the
different types of facilities to maintain the optimal conditions
for crops using the environmental information collected from
various IoT sensors inside the controlled horticulture. The data
accumulated by the environmental information collection unit
are used to design the best control system for the controlled
horticulture facilities. The facility control unit is designed to be
applicable to control methods that use electric signals as well
as remote control methods using communication interfaces
including the Internet. When sensor data are received that are
beyond the preset range for the controlled horticulture facilities
control environment, real-time facility control can be
accomplished by retrieval of the facility operation control
status. By its use of advanced wireless sensor network
technology, the unit is designed not only to enable more
accurate control by analysis of the various sensing values but
also to maintain efficient control of the facilities.
All of the information that the system monitors in real-time
is saved immediately on the DB, and the IEMS-CH platform is
designed so that users can monitor the data through wired or
wireless networks with no restrictions on time and place.
The monitoring and management unit provides users with
information on growth and the controlled horticulture
environment, information from outside weather monitoring,
and information on facility control and management including
heating and water supply, and the users then can manage and
control the entire system on the basis of such information. By
automatically providing users with information on facility
control in GUI format at the display through connections with
both the monitoring and the management systems of the
controlled horticulture, the platform provides services that
enable real-time monitoring and management even at a remote
distance [8]

Fig. 3. The facility control unit

The facility control unit can perform monitoring of the

environment and control for a growth environment, as shown Fig. 4. IEMS-CH Flatform
in Table 1.

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III. PROTOCOL DESIGN
A. Dual Stack Gateway
Because of the difference in network protocols between the
IEMS-CH system and the wireless sensor network connected to
the external Internet, a dual-stack gateway is required to
process the data according to the two different types of network
conditions. The gateway generally receives the requested
information from the monitoring system connected to the
external Internet and then requests the resource information for
the IoT nodes or the topology information for the connections
between nodes through the connected 6LBR (6LoWPAN
Border Router) [9, 10].
In order to provide the topology information of the various
IoT nodes that is optimized to the controlled horticulture
environment, we propose a bottom-up data transmission
method, in which the node itself sends data to the uppermost
parent category, instead of the conventional top-down search
method for obtaining the tree configuration information of IoT
nodes. The topology information for the wireless sensor
network can be provided by visualized data routes between the
nodes, and a more efficient method of managing node
disconnections is provided by a comparison of the topology
information of the sensor network after a node’s physical error
or link error with the previous status. This not only enhances
energy efficiency but also helps overcome the disconnection of
control signals.
To this end, it must be designed with a structure that
enables it to define the node connection and modification
information within the wireless sensor network as a message
that fits the CoAP protocol and to deliver it asynchronously to
the dual-stack gateway. Such a method enables efficient use of
wireless resources as the information will only be delivered
when there is a change. Within the dual-stack gateway, sensor
network topology information is structured and saved and is
then sent to the cache upon the request of the IEMS-CH system.
B. Network Coupling
Fig. 5. Dual stack gateway for IEMS-CH
Fig. 5 shows the dual-stack gateway structure that includes
the periodic request handler and cache-saving function for
requesting information on the wireless sensor network. The
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periodic request handler receives the information from the IoT
nodes, which is saved in the cache after classification. The
gateway returns the data saved in the cache upon the request of
the monitoring system or delivers information on the
modification or addition of sensor nodes to the IEMS-CH
system through the cache management handler.
This structure enables configuration of the sensor network
topology by collecting the information through periodic
requests and by structuring the data received. At the same time,
the collection of sensor information upon such periodic
requests can result in the overload of wireless resources by
activating the system regardless of the IoT node topology
modification, thus being inefficient in terms of battery
consumption. For efficient use of the limited energy resources
of IoT nodes, the network must be designed to use
asynchronous delivery for messages with information on
connections between IoT nodes.
C. Protocol Design
In an IoT node that uses the CoAP protocol, the message
delivered to the uppermost parent node contains the address of
both the parent node and the connected child node. A callback
function is provided to notify the upper layer of events
including the addition and deletion of nodes, and the Node-List
is maintained.
The called function sends the address information of the
parent node, itself, and the child node to 6LBR, the uppermost
node, by referencing the Node-List. 6LBR sends the requested
source address and the addresses of the parent and child node
included in the Payload to the dual-stack gateway of cache.
The process of message delivery using the CoAP protocol is
shown in Fig. 6. The message request uses Confirmable, which
requires a response. The confirmable message delivery based
on this study requires an ACK response of whether the
information has been delivered normally to the uppermost
parent node. When no ACK is received, the message re-
sending routine is performed up to a maximum of three times.
Fig. 6. Message transmission method using CoAP protocol
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 2017 4th NAFOSTED Conference on Information and Computer Science
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
Fig. 7. Performance analysis of proposed topology
For the performance comparison shown in Fig. 7, a search
for all nodes was conducted (as in a periodic request) via a
route from the parent to the child node, which is the same
method as in a binary search. Since the same search method is
used at regular intervals, the number of wireless signals and the
battery consumption also increase accordingly as a function of
time.
In contrast, when a node addition event occurs due to a
search for neighbors after the nodes are initialized, the
information is sent to the uppermost parent node, and battery
consumption also increases dramatically as the number of
initial nodes increases, but this is an increase of power
consumption due to a massive use of wireless resources in the
beginning, which means that the accumulation of signaling and
the sum of power consumption are constant over time.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we implemented an environmental
information collection system for a controlled horticulture
based on a wireless sensor network that enables various
environmental data to be sent in real time through an
environmental information collection unit, facility control unit,
and IEMS-CH platform. Compared to the conventional node
search method, this system was demonstrated to be more
efficient in terms of battery usage by its lower use of wireless
resources, and it was also confirmed through simulation that
wireless signaling did not increase as a function of time.
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At a smart farm that uses the IEMS-CH system, the most
crucial technological factors are the collection of sense data,
connections for interfacing, and prediction using big data
analysis. Through such technology, it is possible for farms to
optimize management through valuable information and
process innovation, to intelligently control the environment
through prediction, and to reduce costs through automation and
efficiency.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by the MSIT(Ministry of
Science and ICT), Korea, under the ITRC(Information
Technology Research Center) support program(IITP-2017-
2013-0-00877) supervised by the IITP(Institute for Information
& communications Technology Promotion)
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