A Design of Plant Factory with Intensive Space and Efficient Energy Utilization

Plant factory has received widespread attention in recent years，which can create tens of times or even a hundred times of agricultural production more than traditional method.But there are also some drawbacks with it，one of which is the high production costs that has significantly limited the development and promotion of a plant factory.Based on the Lean Production and the illumination intensity distribution of LED，proposes a design scheme of the plant factory which could greatly enhance the production capacity，reduce the cost per unit，and improve the production flexibility.In this scheme，the job shop of the plant factory comprises a group of cultivation racks which could smoothly slide on two parallel rails and be assembled when necessary.This unique design greatly reduces the unnecessary non-production areas caused by redundant passages.Meanwhile，it is possible to increase the production capacity and reduce the cost per unit by this improvement.Also，a movable tray device along with a set of dynamic adjusting system were installed and imbedded into the cultivation rack.By doing so，LED′s on top of the cultivation rack of each layer could adjust their power to fit the best growing requirements of plants.The power-adjusting function of LED′s was controlled by the presenting data stored in the main controlled system.With the application of movable tray device and the dynamic adjusting system，the operating consumption of LED′s energy as well as the cost per unit was reduced.The purposes of increasing the production capacity and reducing the cost per unit in the plant factory were achieved through the proposed design scheme with intensive space and efficient energy utilization.Additionally，production flexibility was also optimized.