Climate control software integration with a greenhouse environmental control computer

To integrate dynamic model based climate controlling in real-time with an environmental control computer a system integration interface-BipsArch-was developed. The three main objectives were: (1) to supply standard routines for communication with the environmental control computer. (2) to establish a set of databases to represent the current informational environment for the greenhouse. (3) to formulate a language capable of defining the working concepts of greenhouse process control. Experiments were performed to test this interface concept over a four month period simultaneously at two locations. During this time BipsArch managed the data flow between the greenhouse environmental control system and the modeling software. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.