Vertical farms are still the new kids on the block of agriculture and the business case is evolving rapidly.Taking a system view of the whole farm allows linked decisions to be made and helps identify where current off the shelf technology may be less than optimum. Chris Roberts, Cambridge Consultants head of industrial robotics, looks at the challenges.

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Chris Roberts
AgriTech East: Innovating for CEA
MAKE OR BUY? COMMERCIAL AND
TECHNICAL DRIVERS FOR VERTICAL FARMING

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 Increased production per square metre
 Reducing food miles
 Reduced transport costs
 Sustainable, closed loop systems
 Reduced waste
 Higher quality products
Vertical farming has lots of advantages
INTRO

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 Costs can be broken down into three buckets:
Costs associated with vertical farming are still higher than traditional farming
COSTS
Development Costs
• Paid once per type of machine
or installation
• Pays for engineering time to
invent or tailor a technology to
match the specific needs of the
project
• Paying for development
generally results in owning IP
Installation Costs
• Paid once per installation / farm
at the start of running
• Includes buying land, racking for
crops, lighting and HVAC
hardware
Running Costs
• Paid every day the farm is
running
• Human labour
• Water rates
• Fertiliser, pesticides, seeds and
other agri consumables
• Energy costs for lighting,
heating, cooling, moving things
around within the farm

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Which areas of technology in vertical farming have potential for development?
TECHNOLOGIES
Air management
• One of the biggest costs
• Conventional HVAC
systems are not designed
for Vertical Farming
Sensing & response to
environment
• Improved yield, reduced
lighting
• Few or no off-the-shelf
solutions exist
Manipulation and
automation
• Moving plants to treatment,
or treatment to plants?
• Not replacing people –
doing more with less
• Specialised environment
and specialised robot

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 Air management is the second biggest operating cost, after lighting
 Requirements greatly depend upon crop type
 Vertical farms have different requirements compare to conventional HVAC
Air management
TECHNOLOGIES
Conventional HVAC Vertical farming
Temperature range 20 – 25 °C 15 – 28 °C
Humidity range 35 – 60 Rh% up to 100 Rh%
Power density 100 – 150 W/m2 200 – 700 W/m2
Spatial constraints Control necessary close to ground Control necessary throughout vertical height
Impact of small temperature oscillations Comfort changes Loss in yield

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 Optimum conditions for a plant vary throughout its lifecycle
 Not all plants in a vertical farm will be at the same stage of the lifecycle at the same time
 Sensing is only half the problem – need to respond
 Adding sensing and response adds cost – but can pay back through improved yield and predictability
Sensing and Environmental Response
TECHNOLOGIES
Leaf Detection Hyperspectral Imaging Fruit detection

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 Many agriculture tasks that people find easy –
assessing ripeness, finding fruit in canopies,
harvesting only certain leaves – are still very
difficult to automate in a cost-effective way
 Automation is not about replacing people with
robots, there will always be some human work
– Think “production line” not “androids”
– Driven by availability not cost
 Increasing automation leads to higher density
– layout of farms changes to match the
capability of the system
 Many trade-offs depend on specific crops or
farms
– Moving plants to treatment or vice versa
– Dexterity vs speed
– Flexibility vs cost
Manipulation and automation
TECHNOLOGIES

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 Developing specialised, more efficient
technologies is the only way to get the costs of
vertical farming down in the long run
 But developing more tech is expensive
 Spreading this cost over a large scale is the
only way it can make sense…
 …either through innovative sharing of tech, or
just larger ambition
Conclusions

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