You really can just go home, wash up, and go to sleep while a remote computer automatically tends the greenhouse.

The Agricultural Research Institute has developed a "Smart Facility Environmental Monitoring Expert System"! Through meteorological sensing elements for temperature and humidity, light, wind speed, wind direction, soil temperature and humidity, salinity, and rain detection, it monitors environmental changes outside greenhouse facilities, allowing managers to use an APP smart mobile device at any time for remote control, issuing activation commands, and controlling the opening and closing of facilities such as roof vents, shade nets, and thermal insulation nets.

"For example, when a sun shower occurs, the sensing elements can detect high light, high temperature, and high humidity. Once this phenomenon is detected, the ventilation system, whose parameters have already been set, will start automatically," explained Huang Lidong, a researcher in the Agricultural Engineering Division.

Each system costs about 200,000 yuan; one system suits one greenhouse

But how much does it actually cost to purchase a complete system? Huang Lidong said that the current goal is to keep the price of a "Smart Facility Environmental Monitoring Expert System" that includes a main unit, sensing elements, and an APP within 200,000 yuan. "If managers are willing to control the opening and closing of facilities manually, they do not need to purchase the APP remote control device, which can save about another 70,000 to 80,000 yuan." Compared with a system from abroad costing 600,000 to 1,200,000 yuan, "a domestic system at 200,000 yuan is quite competitive."

As for how much greenhouse facility area one system can control? Huang also said, "Basically, one greenhouse is equipped with one system." After technology transfer, the technology transfer manufacturer can further promote and assist farmers in building related system equipment.