Preliminary project design for insect production: part 2-organism kinetics, system dynamics and the role of modelling & simulation

During preliminary project design (PPD) an entopreneur can investigate a variety of process types, organism/feed combinations, operating conditions and procedures, control approaches, etc. before deciding on a specific system arrangement and proceeding to a more formal design stage. With modelling and simulation the effort required to locate a high-value point within the overall possibility space for a system can be greatly reduced because much of the development work can be carried out in a virtual environment. Nevertheless, to formulate models of the organism/feed kinetics as well as other system aspects, this approach must be based on experimental data. And, of course, results of a simulation study must be verified empirically. A simulation-based approach to PPD allows an entopreneur to study the dynamics of a wide variety of system arrangements and to gain insight into how a given arrangement is likely to perform with different parameter values and disturbances.

Automated summary

During preliminary project design, an entopreneur can explore various process types, organism/feed combinations, and control approaches before deciding on a specific system arrangement. Modeling and simulation help reduce the effort needed to locate high-value points within the possibility space, but models must be based on experimental data and simulation results verified empirically. This approach allows for studying the dynamics and performance of different system arrangements with varying parameter values and disturbances.