Abstract:
The agricultural sector is important for the economy of Pakistan because it contributes
significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, over the years local crop
production has reduced which results in hefty imports of cash crops to fulfill the local needs.
The main reason behind the decrease in production is the lack of appropriate utilization of
pesticides, water supply, and poor quality of seeds. These parameters are known as Optimum
Cultivation Factors (OCF). In Pakistan, OCFs have been supplied based on the hit and trial
methods without following the standardization. To provide a proper ratio of OCFs, a simulator
is designed under the approved NRPU research grant that will mimic the agricultural field's
real-time environment while maintaining the temperature, humidity, and moisture content with
appropriate provision of water. Under the scope of this research as a part of a funded grant, an
intelligent control system for a multifunctional agriculture simulator is designed. Based on real
time field values, and upon their assessment based on crop growth, fuzzy-based membership
functions are designed to mimic the real environment at the lab scale. The designed system
monitors and control the actuators such as water pumps for moisture, heater for temperature
and sun simulator for solar irradiation control. The fuzzy cascaded designed controller will be
used in the project hardware to create a pre-farming-controlled crop assessment simulator, that
will test the various stages of plant development to standardize OCFs and discover any issues
of growth in real fields.
