The Design of Greenhouse Lighting Control System

Wang Yanhui, Ji Xiaofei

Shenyang Aerospace University ,School of automation, Shenyang 110134, China
E-mail: wyhui73@163.com
Abstract: Various organic substances that are required by plant growth are synthesized by photosynthesis. The intensity
of illumination is too strong or too weak will let the photosynthesis be suppressed. This paper describes the design of
a greenhouse control system, which use single chip as the core of the control system and digital light sensor
(BH1750FVI) to detect the light intensity inside and outside the greenhouse. The system can control light intensity and
light time of the greenhouse. The system has two kinds of working modes, e.g. automatic and manual. In the automatic
mode, according to the indoor and outdoor light intensity and crop species to control the condition of fill-in light
and shading film, making the greenhouse light intensity and light time remained within an appropriate range
automatically. In manual mode, the light shading film state control and lighting systems control are required people to
operate. Experiments show that the system can compensate some defects such as manual control error and low
efficiency. It has the advantages of simple operation and strong practicability.
Key Words: Greenhouse, Illumination, Control, Fill Light, Light Shading Film

mode and manual mode. In the automatic mode, the fill-in

1 INTRODUCTION light and shading film are controlled according to
The light intensity has significant effect on the the indoor and outdoor illumination intensity and crop
photosynthetic of plants. Light environment changes species. In manual mode, the light shading film
directly affect photosynthesis, water status, energy balance state control and lighting system control are required
and the products quality of plants[1]. The people to operate.
different conditions of light have different effect on plant
growth rate, leaf shape and leaf color. The appropriate
2 THE DESIGN OF SYSTEM HARDWARE
light conditions are favorable to the formation
of carbohydrate in leaves and transporting it to root. If 2.1 Block Diagram of the System
illumination is too strong or too weak both have the adverse The system consists of sensor circuit, keyboard circuit,
effects to the carbohydrate formation[2-3]. Light intensity display circuit, clock circuit, light shading film control
has not proportional relationship with plant photosynthesis. circuit and lighting control circuit. Block diagram is shown
But in a certain light intensity range with other suitable in Fig. 1.
conditions, the intensity of photosynthesis will increase
with the increase of illumination intensity. When
illumination intensity exceeds the saturation point and the
illumination intensity still increase, the intensity of
photosynthesis will not increase. Only when light intensity
meet the requirement of photosynthesis, plant would
growth normally[4-5].
Different crops have different demand to the light[6]. China
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the system
is the earliest country that use greenhouse to cultivate plants,
but modern greenhouse develop not very well[7]. In the
It selects STC89C52RC microcontroller as the core of
greenhouse control system, people always pay more
system control. It is a small microcontroller produced by
attention to automatic control of temperature and
macro Crystal Company. It can electrically erasable
humidity[8-10], while they usually overlook the
programmable, and work in a very wild voltage (2.7~6V)
importance of light intensity to plants growth. Considering
with low power consumption. So it is suitable for the
the actual level of the rural economy and their science, it is
system. The keyboard is used for calibrating the system
necessary to design an economical, practical, easy
clock, switching system working mode, selecting the
operation system to control the illumination. Considering
species of crop, controlling the light shading film at manual
the greenhouse environment and the different illumination
mode state and choosing to view the crops information. The
needed for different crops, we design the greenhouse
sensor circuit is composed of light intensity sensor and limit
light control system based on single chip microcomputer.
switch to detection the light intensity and the position
The system has two kinds of working modes: automatic
information of shading film. The light control is used for
compensating lighting when the greenhouse of the indoor
This work is supported by National Nature Science Foundation under and outdoor illumination are weak. The light shading film
Grant (No. 61103123), by the Scientific Research General Project of Education control circuit is composed by DC motor and its drive
Department of Liaoning Province, China (No. L2014066)

978-1-4799-7016-2/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 2613
 circuit. The shading film state is changed by controlling the
positive and negative rotation of the motor. The clock
circuit utilizes the clock chip DS1302 to obtain time
information and control lighting time. The display uses
liquid crystal display LCD1602, which can display 16
columns and 2 rows with has 32 characters. Display
information includes information of clock, indoor and
outdoor illumination, crop information and the
corresponding keyboard about crops selection.
2.2 The Light Intensity Detection Circuit
The light intensity detection is achieved by using integrated
digital illumination detection sensor BH1750 FVI. The
integrated sensor BH175FVI is produced by the
semiconductor manufacturer BOHM aiming at to meet the
requirements of mobile phones, digital cameras, game
consoles and other portable equipment. It has excellent
spectral characteristics. It includes two wire serial bus
interface, built in 16bitA/D converter. The working voltage
is 2.4V-3.6V. The light intensity probe range is
1lx-65535lx. It is weakly dependent the light source, and
the effect of infrared ray is very small. It can digitally
output light intensity values without the need for
conversion. The results of detecting BH1750FVI sensor are
shown in Fig. 2.
the power level of ADDR end. Therefore, the sensor
1(testing indoor light) and sensor 2(testing outdoor
illumination) have different address of reading and writing
operations, which can save the footprint of MCU I/O port,
and meanwhile it will also simplify the difficulty of the
software design. DVI pin, the input pin of the synchronous
reset signal, is in charge of the operation of 12C interface
reset. After giving power, the duration of the low level
is longer than lȝs, otherwise BH1750FVI won’t work
input
properly. Here the synchronous reset function is realized by
the RC series circuit of capacitance charging process.
2.3 The Clock Circuit
The duration of lighting is also called “light length”. The
changes of light length make the synchronization of
endogenous rhythm between plants and original light
length disrupted so that a series of physiological changes
inside plants will generate to affect the growth of plants.
Different crops differs in the appropriate light length, such
as watermelon’s is 10 to 12h, tomato’s is 11 to 13h, etc.
Therefore, greenhouse electric system is used for
controlling not only light intensity but also light length.
And the time information is acquired by the clock
chip—DS1302 which is a high-performance, low power
consumption and real-time clock circuit with the RAM
launched by the DALLAS company in the United States.
When the working voltage is 2.5 to 5.5V, the circuit can
calculate the year, the month, the date, the hour, the minute
and the second.

Fig. 2. The result of BH1750 light intensity measurements

Fig. 4. Clock circuit
The circuit of BH1750FVI and MCU is as shown in Fig.3.
The wiring diagram of DS1302 and single-chip computer is
VCC
shown in Fig. 4. The X1 and X2 are oscillating source and
1K¡ 1K¡ 1K¡ the external 32.768kHz crystals for chip pulse. Reset/the
VCC IN SCL line selection of RST and P1.7 are linked together, and
AMS1117-3.3 OUT VCC
6 P1.2
3 2 1
BH1750 DVI
when high levels are input the data transmission will start.
+ GND 1 + ADDR SCM
10­F
2 (1#) 5 SCLK, the end of serial clock input, is connected to P1.5;
22­F SDA P1.1
GND
4 I/O, the end of serial data input/output are connected to
3
P1.6; and the main power VCC2 is connected to +5V
VCC
SCL 1­F supplying power for MCU.
6
1
ADDR BH1750 DVI 2.4 The Keyboard Circuit
2 (2#) 5
SDA
GND The keyboard is used to select crop species (each crop
4
3

Fig. 3. The light intensity detection circuit

Working voltage is 3.3V provided by the integrated voltage
stabilizing chip AMS1117-3.3. SCL end is the clock bus
and SDA end is the data bus. As the operation of the
machine’s address, BH1750FVI can be set up by adjusting
corresponds to a digital number), switch work mode,
control the state of window film, view crop information and
etc. The keyboard circuit is as shown in Fig.5.
The keyboard is designed into 4×4 matrix and the
identification method is used “the line scan method”. The
four article lines are respectively connected to MCU P3.0 to
P3.3 and the four column ones are P3.4 ~ P3.7.

2614 2015 27th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

From top to bottom, from left to right, the key number 1to level or in low level at the same time, the motor is in static
16, each button has a different role in different work mode. motion.
In automatic mode: button 1 to 9 correspond to the numbers
1-9; button 10 is corresponding to the number 0; button 11
is the clear key; button 12 is for automatic and manual Table1. The Relationship between L298 Input and Motor
control Steering

ENA IN1 IN2 The motor running state

0 × × stop
1 1 0 forward
1 0 1 reversal
1 1 1 stop
1 0 0 stop

3 SYSTEM SOFTWARE DESIGN

Fig. 5. Keyboard circuit
3.1 The Main Program Design
mode conversion; button 13 is for viewing the selected
crops information; button 14 is for the exit of viewing; The main program flowing chart of the system is shown in
button 15 is used for selecting the functions which will be Fig.7. The system uses the modular design thought. Light
finished by pressing the button and enter the serial numbers control subprogram complete shading film state control and
of crops; and button 16 is for crops to confirm the end of the light switch control. In automatic control mode, according
input. In manual mode: button 1 to 8 is used to control the to the crop species, indoor and outdoor lighting conditions
number of light source to 1 to 8 respectively; button 10 is make indoor illumination intensity to achieve the most
used to control the number of light source to 0; button 9 is suitable condition for the growth of plants. Display
used to open the window film; if the system is in the state of subprogram of crop information included crop species and
number input, button 11 is used for releasing or for shading light compensation point,light saturation point. In manual
the membrane; and the functions of button 12, button 13, control mode, operators control the shading film and fill-in
button 14, button 15, and button 16 are the same as the light according to the experience. The state of shading film
functions in the mode of automatic. and the number of fill-in light is set by using keyboard
input.
2.5 The Motor Drive Circuit
In the system, the DC motor controls the switch state of the start
shading membrane by positive and negative motion. The
output current of SCM I/O port is so small that can’t drive initialize
DC motor, therefore, the L298N motor driver chip is
adopted to provide enough driving current for DC motor. choose the crop
Motor drive circuit is shown in Fig.6. The input signal of
L298N and motor running state are as shown in Tablel1.
manual control
Making the control end ENA is high level and the input end mode˛
Y N
light intensity test
procedures
obtain the shading
film control
commands and the light intensity
number of fill-in light control
procedures

display crop N
according to the
command control film information?
and switch to fill-in
Y
light
Fig. 6. Motor drive circuit call display
program
IN2 is low level. When the input end IN2 is low level and
input end IN1is in PWM signal, the motor is in positive Fig. 7. System main program flow chart
motion; on the contrary, when the input end IN1 is low
level and the input end IN2 is in PWM signal, the motor is
in negative motion; when both IN1 and IN2 are in high

2015 27th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC) 2615

 3.2 Light Intensity Test Program
Light intensity testing procedures is used to detect the
indoor and outdoor light. In order to prevent system error
operation from accidental light source (such as lightning) in
the process of light detection indoor and outdoor, abnormal
data judgment and processing is needed. When testing
intervals is chosen as 0.05s, a total of 40 data is measured.
The standard deviation of the data is used as the measured
results after excluding gross error, as shown in formula1.E
is measured result of the light intensity, ei represents the
measured valueˈ n is the number of the measurements
after excluding gross error, e is the average of the
measured value, ıe is the standard deviation of measured
value of.
1 n
E Ve ¦ ( ei  e ) 2
n 1 i 1
Gross error is eliminated by using the Chauvenet result. If
the residual vi satisfy formula 2, measurement ei is
considered as gross error to be removed. Then continue to
judgment until all of abnormal data are removed. The
parameter used in the Chauvenet result is chosen, Zc=2.49
[11], ıe is obtained by the formula 1.When calculate for the
first time n=40.Then n changes with the number of the
abnormal data .
| vi | | ei  e |! Z cV e
3.3 Light Intensity Control Program Design
The light intensity affects the intensity of photosynthesis.
The light length, light compensation point and light
saturation point of the different crops is different. Several
kinds of vegetables with the corresponding numerical
values are presented in Table2.
Table2. Several Kinds of Vegetables Illumination Parameters
than respiration with the increase of light intensity, so the
plants accumulate organic matter inside. But when the light
intensity is greater than a certain value, the increasing of
light is no longer to enhance photosynthesis. That is the
light saturation phenomenon, in which the light intensity is
the light saturation point.
According to the crop species and the situation of the
indoor and outdoor illumination, light intensity control
program is running. Control system should not only control
the light intensity, but also control the light length at the
same time. Peng[12] adopt virtual instrument design of
light control system. Hu[13] designed light greenhouse
environment control system based on wireless sensor
network. Xu[14] designed intelligent LED plant control
system as the fill light based on CPLD. Above work only
control light intensity, they didn't control the light length.
(1) Our proposed system can control the light length and
illumination intensity at the same time. Light control
program flow chart is shown in Fig.8, Eo represents
outdoor light, Ei represents indoor light, Elmax represents
light saturation point, Ep represents light compensation
point. In order to make full use of outdoor lighting to
achieve the purpose of energy saving, the relationship of
the starting point of light length control T1, the finishing
time T2 and the crop of light time T is shown in model 3
and model 4 respectively. For example, if we selected
celery, the time of the light is more than 12h, so we select
(2) for 14h, that is T1=5, T2=19.The light time start at the 5AM
and end moment at19 PM. In a certain light length, the
system realized to retain the shading film when outdoor
lighting is strong and turn on more fill-in light when
outdoor lighting is weak
T 1 12  T / 2   (3)
       T 2 12  T / 2    (4)

Light Light
Vegetables Code Time(h) saturation compensation
point (klx) point(klx)
melon 001 10-12 60 1.5
eggplant 002 9-12 40 2
lettuce 003 >12 25 1.5-2
celery 004 >12 45 2
kidney
005 12-14 20-25 1.5
bean
Chinese
006 10 40 12
chives
green Chinese
007 10-24 25 1.2
onion

Compensation point of plant is lower than light saturation
point. In the light compensation point, photosynthesis is
equal to the respiration, plants is no longer accumulation of
organic matter. When light intensity is higher than light
compensation point, Photosynthesis increases and is greater
Fig. 8. Light control program flow chart
4 CONCLUSION
According to the data provided in Table 2, the crops
represented by 002 (melon), 005 (kidney bean) and 006

2616 2015 27th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

(leek) are selected to test the system. Test shows that when
the system works in automatic mode, the selected crop
species automatically determine the start time and end time.
Within this period of time, if the light intensity indoor and
outdoor are lower than the light compensation point of crop,
the system automatically open the fill-in light. When indoor
light is lower than light compensation point and the outdoor
light is suitable, the system automatically open shaking film
and close the fill-in light. When the outdoor light is strong,
the fill-in light will be automatically closed and close the
shading film. The system can successful control the light
intensity and light length. When the system is working in
manual mode, the shading film and the light switch can be
controlled by keyboard.
The system has the advantages of economy and practice. It
is easy to operate. It makes up the defects that the staffs are
required to have rich experience in the manual control.
Combined with the temperature and humidity control
system, the system can provide better conditions for crops
in greenhouse. However the system does not take into
account the different needs of the crops in different growth
stages, such as the amount of light and light color. Our
further work is to achieve accurate quantification of the fill
light by using different colors of LED lamps and pulse
width modulation signal.
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