Video
Driving Question
Project Introduction
Introduction
High Crop Yield
Solution
Automation
Solution
Prototype for "High Crop Yield"
Prototype for "Automation"

Published February 3, 2023

Bee Integration into Commercial Urban Farms

EEP Project T2-3

BeginnerFull instructions provided128

Bee Integration into Commercial Urban Farms

Things used in this project

Hardware components

M5Stack ESP32 Basic Core IoT Development Kit

M5Stack I/O Hub 1 to 6 Expansion

FEETECH Standard Servo FS5106B

M5Stack Light Sensor Unit with Photo-resistance

M5Stack ENV III Unit with Temperature Humidity Air Pressure Sensor (SHT30+QMP6988)

M5Stack RGB Unit with NeoPixel RGB LED (SK6812)

Arduino UNO

LED (generic)

Breadboard (generic)

Software apps and online services

M5Stack UIFlow

Story

Video

If the above video does not work, please use the following alternatives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RVaaQ2K__w
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_UcsTFy-WF2YI0GXaf3O1n7diKifks4n/view?usp=sharing

Driving Question

How can we successfully integrate bees into commercial urban farms

Project Introduction

This project will aim to solve the issue of pollination faced by commercial urban farms by using sensors to integrate bees into these farm. This project will aim to solve the issue of pollination faced by commercial urban farms by using sensors to successfully integrate bees into these farms by optimising pollination rates and tracking the health of bees automatically

Introduction

Commercial urban farming has evolved significantly since its inception. At the moment, one can observe the many different technologies being used in such farms, especially in more advanced farms viz vertical farms (WIRED, 2018). Multifarious sensors, such as temperature and humidity sensors, are able to monitor the crops’ surrounding environment and is able to enforce the most suitable parameters for the environment to achieve optimal crop growth (SIAA, 2022). Other sensors such as cameras may also be used to monitor the crops’ growth (Hwang, Lee, Kim, Baik, & Choi, 2022). Advanced artificial intelligence may also be used in some farms, whose use cases include ensuring the quality of eggs for instance (IBM, 2019). This ubiquitous integration as well as advancement of technology into many commercial urban farms indicates a diminishing room for simple improvements to be made with respect to the technological aspects of urban farming.

However, there is an area in commercial urban farming which we believe to still be in its infancy stages: growing crops that require pollination. Given that many commercial urban farms are a closed system, there are no natural pollinators – bees, butterflies, and birds – to provide pollination to crops that need it. Some farms use may pollinate the crops using inefficient methods, mainly manual pollination (ICL, 2022). As such, we are proposing a system of integrating bees, a natural pollinator, to increase the efficiency of pollination in commercial urban farms. If the project is done successfully, crops that heavily rely on pollination may be feasible for commercial urban farms, increasing the variety of crops that these farms can produce. The bees may also serve a secondary purpose of producing honey which may be commercialized.

To achieve successful integration of bees, we have identified 2 key areas that need to be fully satisfied:

· High Crop Yield

· Automation

High Crop Yield:

Over-visitations by bees as well as under-visitations may result in a decrease in crop yield (Agustin et al., 2014; Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, n.d.). Under-visitions may also result in deformed crops (University Of Maryland, 2022). Therefore, it will be important to manipulate bees' movement to achieve an optimal number of visitations for the crops.

Solution:

We have designed a checkpoint system which will count the number of bees that have entered a section of the farm for pollination. If there are too many bees in that section causing over-pollination, an almond scent will be diffused to usher away the bees from there. Alternatively, if there are too few bees in another section, a lemon scent will be diffused to attract the bees (Westreich, 2020). Two light sensors and light-emitting diodes(LED) enclosed in an opaque case will be used to count the number of bees as well as the direction of the movements.

Automation:

The health of the bees should be monitored automatically such that manual inspection should be done at a minimal rate. A beehive has 2 main environmental factors: Humidity and temperature. The relative humidity of a beehive may range from 50% to 95%, depending on the location of the beehive (Doull, 1976). Conversely, the optimal temperature for the beehive ranges from 34.5 degrees Celcius to 35.5 degrees Celcius (Embry, 2021).

Solution:

An environment sensor will be used to detect temperature and humidity. The optimal range set for the sensors is 34.5 degrees Celcius to 35.5 degrees Celcius for temperature and 50% to 60% for humidity. A lower humidity range is selected for testing purposes as well as the fact that humidity tends to be higher around bee eggs and lower elsewhere in the hive. The health indication of the bees will be indicated using an LED in another location such that the health of the bees can be gauged remotely without going to the sensor. The data from the sensor will be transferred to the LED using M5Stack’s EzData module.

Prototype for "High Crop Yield":

1 / 2 • Figure 1

Figure 1 shows the setup to track bees' movement. The servo motor in this setup acts as a scent dispenser. It will activate once too many bees is determined to be going into the farm.

Figure 2 will be the area where the bees move. 2 red LEDs are used, corresponding with 2 other light sensors. They are enclosed in an opaque casing to ensure no outside light interferes with the light sensors. They are used to determine the direction of the bee's movement. Figure 3 below shows an animation of the light sensors and LED working together to track the movement of bees in and out of a farming section

In the prototype, the enclosure can fit many bees. However, for actual production, the enclosure will only be one bee length as this configuration is only able to track the direction of one bee at a time.

Figure 3

This functionality will be used to manipulate the number of bees going to each farm section. Figure 4 shows how the bees integrated will look from a high level. The beehive is linked to different farming sections. The setup tracking bee movements will be placed in the link. With the tracking and scent dispenser, the bees' movements are able to be manipulated to go to the sections that require pollination and away from the sections that are over-visited.

Figure 4

Prototype for "Automation":

1 / 2 • Figure 5

Figure 5 shows the setup to monitor the health of the bees. It uses an environment sensor to measure the humidity and temperature of the beehive. It will then transmit this data wirelessly. Figure 6 shows the setup that receives the aforementioned data. It will show the health of the bees using colours on the RGB unit -- Green is healthy, yellow is a warning, and red is dangerous -- as well as on its LCD display. This will allow for remote monitoring of bees.

References

A. S., Morales, C. L., Ramos, L. Y., & Aizen, M. A. (2014). Extremely frequent bee visits increase pollen. Journal of Applied Ecology, 51(6), 1603-1612.

Doull, K. M. (1976). THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT HUMIDITIES ON THE. Apidologie, 61-66.

Embry, P. (2021, April). This Old Bee House: Study Deems Hive Boxes Drafty, Inefficient. Retrieved from Entomology Today: https://entomologytoday.org/2021/04/16/honey-bee-hive-boxes-drafty-inefficient-temperature/#:~:text=It%20needs%20to%20be%20between, cool%20or%20shivering%20to%20warm.

Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. (n.d.). Does too little pollination reduce crop yields? Retrieved from Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust: https://www.gwct.org.uk/farming/research/pollinators/does-too-little-pollination-reduce-crop-yields/

Hwang, Y., Lee, S., Kim, T., Baik, K., & Choi, Y. (2022). Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction.

IBM. (2019, July). Pixelabs: An AI innovator helps egg farms transform a labor-intensive process and cut costs. Retrieved from International Business Machines Corporation: https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/pixelabs

ICL. (2022, February 9). What Is Vertical Farming? Retrieved from Israel Chemicals Ltd.: https://www.icl-group.com/blog/what-is-vertical-farming-what-are-advantages/#:~:text=No%20bees%2C%20no%20pollination., be%20labor%2Dintensive%20and%20costly.

SIAA. (2022, 07 20). Urban Farming with Bridgetek IoTPortal and Sensors. Retrieved from Singapore Industrial Automation Association: https://siaa.org/news/announcement-and-industry-articles/urban-farming-bridgetek-iotportal-and-sensors

University Of Maryland. (2022, July 12). Pollination Problems of Vegetables. Retrieved from University Of Maryland Extension: https://extension.umd.edu/resource/pollination-problems-vegetables#:~:text=Blooms%20will%20simply%20drop%20off, lack%20of%20pollination%20and%20fertilization.

Westreich, S. (2020, November 25). The Scents that Attract (or Repel) Bees. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/a-microbiome-scientist-at-large/the-scents-that-attract-or-repel-bees-ec8a7ae1ea38

WIRED (Director). (2018). Tokyo’s Vertical Farms - The Future of Farming [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGtdoGXhjxQ

Schematics

Code

from m5stack import *
from m5ui import *
from uiflow import *
from flow import ezdata
import wifiCfg
import unit

setScreenColor(0x222222)
env2_0 = unit.get(unit.ENV2, unit.PORTA)


status = None
temp = None
hum = None

wifiCfg.autoConnect(lcdShow=False)

label0 = M5TextBox(7, 22, "Temperature(°C):", lcd.FONT_UNICODE, 0xffffff, rotate=0)
label1 = M5TextBox(230, 22, "Text", lcd.FONT_UNICODE, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label2 = M5TextBox(64, 60, "Humidity(%):", lcd.FONT_UNICODE, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label3 = M5TextBox(230, 60, "Text", lcd.FONT_UNICODE, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label4 = M5TextBox(80, 99, "Text", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xffffff, rotate=0)
label5 = M5TextBox(102, 122, "Text", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xffffff, rotate=0)




while True:
  label1.setText(str(env2_0.temperature))
  label3.setText(str(env2_0.humidity))
  if (env2_0.temperature) > 35.5:
    label4.setText('Hive Temperate Too HIGH')
    label4.setColor(0xff0000)
    rgb.setColorFrom(6 , 10 ,0xff0000)
    temp = True
  elif (env2_0.temperature) < 34.5:
    label4.setText('Hive Temperate Too LOW')
    label4.setColor(0xff0000)
    rgb.setColorFrom(6 , 10 ,0xff0000)
    temp = True
  else:
    label4.setText('Hive Temperate OK')
    label4.setColor(0x33cc00)
    rgb.setColorFrom(6 , 10 ,0x33cc00)
    temp = False
  if (env2_0.humidity) > 60:
    label5.setText('Humidity Too HIGH')
    label5.setColor(0xff0000)
    rgb.setColorFrom(1 , 5 ,0xff0000)
    hum = True
  elif (env2_0.humidity) < 50:
    label5.setText('Humidity Too LOW')
    label5.setColor(0xff0000)
    rgb.setColorFrom(1 , 5 ,0xff0000)
    hum = True
  else:
    label5.setText('Humidity OK')
    label5.setColor(0x33cc00)
    rgb.setColorFrom(1 , 5 ,0x33cc00)
    hum = False
  if hum == True and temp == True:
    status = 'danger'
  elif hum == False and temp == False:
    status = 'ok'
  else:
    status = 'warning'
  ezdata.setData('R3jYwSPOVonYjxJvnWp8wnHeheBZv9HG', 'transfer', status)
  wait_ms(2)

from m5stack import *
from m5ui import *
from uiflow import *
from flow import ezdata
import wifiCfg
import unit

setScreenColor(0x222222)
rgb_0 = unit.get(unit.RGB, unit.PORTB)


reply = None

wifiCfg.autoConnect(lcdShow=False)

label0 = M5TextBox(58, 41, "Status: ", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label1 = M5TextBox(126, 40, "Loading...", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)




while True:
  reply = ezdata.getData('R3jYwSPOVonYjxJvnWp8wnHeheBZv9HG', 'transfer')
  if reply == 'danger':
    label1.setText('Danger')
    label1.setColor(0xff0000)
    rgb_0.setColorAll(0xff0000)
  elif reply == 'warning':
    label1.setText('Warning')
    label1.setColor(0xffcc33)
    rgb_0.setColorAll(0xffcc00)
  elif reply == 'ok':
    label1.setText('Ok')
    label1.setColor(0x33cc00)
    rgb_0.setColorAll(0x33cc00)
  wait_ms(2)

from m5stack import *
from m5ui import *
from uiflow import *
import unit

setScreenColor(0x222222)
pbhub_0 = unit.get(unit.PBHUB, unit.PORTA)
servo_0 = unit.get(unit.SERVO, unit.PORTB)


NUM = None
NUM2 = None
NUM3 = None
NUM4 = None
CHECK = None
NUM6 = None
check2 = None
check3 = None
che = None



label0 = M5TextBox(215, 80, "Loading...", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label2 = M5TextBox(215, 164, "Loading...", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label3 = M5TextBox(30, 164, "Number of Bees Inside:", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)
label5 = M5TextBox(69, 80, "Latest Movement:", lcd.FONT_Default, 0xFFFFFF, rotate=0)

from numbers import Number




NUM = 0
NUM2 = 0
NUM3 = 0
NUM4 = 0
CHECK = 0
NUM6 = 0
check2 = 0
check3 = 0
che = False
while True:
  che = False
  if 700 < (pbhub_0.analogRead(0)):
    NUM = 1
    if check3 == 0:
      check2 = 1
  else:
    NUM = 0
  if 700 < (pbhub_0.analogRead(1)):
    NUM2 = 1
    if check2 == 0:
      check3 = 1
  else:
    NUM2 = 0
  if NUM == 1 and NUM2 == 1:
    CHECK = 1
  if CHECK == 1:
    if NUM == 1 and NUM2 == 0:
      while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(1)):
        if che == True:
          break
        if check3 == 1:
          while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(0)):
            label0.setText('Go in')
            CHECK = 0
            NUM3 = 1
            che = True
            check3 = 0
            break
        else:
          while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(0)):
            check2 = 0
            che = True
            break
    elif NUM == 0 and NUM2 == 1:
      while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(0)):
        if che == True:
          break
        while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(1)):
          if check2 == 1:
            label0.setText('Go out')
            CHECK = 0
            NUM4 = 1
            che = True
            check2 = 0
            break
          else:
            while 700 > (pbhub_0.analogRead(1)):
              check3 = 0
              che = True
              break
  if NUM3 == 1:
    NUM3 = 0
    NUM6 = (NUM6 if isinstance(NUM6, Number) else 0) + 1
    label2.setText(str(NUM6))
  elif NUM4 == 1:
    NUM4 = 0
    NUM6 = (NUM6 if isinstance(NUM6, Number) else 0) + -1
    label2.setText(str(NUM6))
  if NUM6 >= 10:
    servo_0.write_angle(90)
  else:
    servo_0.write_angle(0)
  wait_ms(2)

Credits

JS Chong

1 project • 1 follower

Bee Integration into Commercial Urban Farms

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Video

Driving Question

Project Introduction

Introduction

High Crop Yield:

Solution:

Automation:

Solution:

Prototype for "High Crop Yield":

Prototype for "Automation":

Custom parts and enclosures

Lighting Enclosure

Schematics

Lighting

Block Diagram for M5Stack Tracking Bees' Movement

Block Diagram for M5Stack Monitoring Bee Health

Block Diagram for M5Stack Receiving Bee Health Data

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Tracking Bees' Movement

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Monitoring Bee Health

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Receiving Bee Health Data

Flowchart for "Tracking Bee Movements" Code

Flowchart for "Bee Health Monitoring" Code

Flowchart for "Remote Monitoring" Code

Design Implementation for "Tracking Bee Movements"

Design Implementation for "Bee Health Monitoring"

Design Implementation for "Remote Monitoring"

2D Board

Code

Bee Health Monitoring

Remote Monitoring

Tracking Bee Movements

Credits

JS Chong

Comments

Embed the widget on your own site

Bee Integration into Commercial Urban Farms

Bee Integration into Commercial Urban Farms

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Video

Driving Question

Project Introduction

Introduction

High Crop Yield:

Solution:

Automation:

Solution:

Prototype for "High Crop Yield":

Prototype for "Automation":

Custom parts and enclosures

Lighting Enclosure

Schematics

Lighting

Block Diagram for M5Stack Tracking Bees' Movement

Block Diagram for M5Stack Monitoring Bee Health

Block Diagram for M5Stack Receiving Bee Health Data

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Tracking Bees' Movement

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Monitoring Bee Health

Circuit Diagram for M5Stack Receiving Bee Health Data

Flowchart for "Tracking Bee Movements" Code

Flowchart for "Bee Health Monitoring" Code

Flowchart for "Remote Monitoring" Code

Design Implementation for "Tracking Bee Movements"

Design Implementation for "Bee Health Monitoring"

Design Implementation for "Remote Monitoring"

2D Board

Code

Bee Health Monitoring

Remote Monitoring

Tracking Bee Movements

Credits

JS Chong

Comments

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