Computer Integrated Agricultural Production

Abstract Greenhouse production of vegetables has been remarkably developed. Furthermore, vegetables could be cultivated in the factory where such environmental factors as light intensity and temperature are controlled just like in process industries. In the system, many computers are used for environmental control, nutrient control and management of cultivation. Of course, the artificial intelligence is also introduced for the expert system for control and diagnosis of the cultivated vegetables. On the other hand, progress in automated mechanization for seeding and transplanting has made “greenhouse automation” fit for practical use just like “factory automation (FA)” in industries. Now, process industries are rationalized based on the concept of so called “Computer Integrated Manufacture (CIM)”. Therefore, it might be noted that the system in the agricultural production such as the vegetable factory should also be considered based on the concept of CIM. That is the “Computer Integrated Agricultural Production (CIAP)”. In this paper, we examine the vegetable factory from the “CIAP” point of view. Computer network composed of both usual personal computer for environmental control and the special computer for the artificial intelligence is examined. It seems evident that the CIAP discussed in this paper is expected as the most effective system in the coming generation.