Lettuce modelling for growth control in precision agriculture

Improving the efficiency of agriculture is a growing priority due to food security issues, environmental concerns, and economics. Precision agriculture and variable rate application technology could enable in-creases in yield while maintaining or reducing fertiliser use. However, this requires the development of control algorithms which are suitable for the challenges of agriculture. In this paper, we propose a new mechanistic open model of lettuce growth for use in control of precision agriculture. We demonstrate that our model is cooperative and fits well to experimental data. We use the model to show, via simulations, that a simple proportional distributed control law increases crop uniformity and yield without increasing nitrogen use, even in the presence of sparse actuation and noisy observations. (c) 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of European Control Association.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a new mechanistic open model of lettuce growth for precision agriculture control and demonstrates its cooperation and fit with experimental data. The researchers use simulations to show that a simple proportional distributed control method can increase crop uniformity and yield without increasing nitrogen use.