NIBS Project Introduction
Iponics is a new Agriculture Technology consisting of a blend of Hydroponics, Aeroponics, Aquaculture & Aquaponics managed by automation augmented by Artificial Intelligence that is suited for every sector from Domestic to Broadscale Farming.
Sensors constantly monitor all aspects of the growing environment & assist natural growth.
Aided by a NIBS 'Network Intelligent Bus System' that has been specifically developed & programmed for node based decision making. (More on NIBS here).
Aspects including weather forecasts, power costs, real time current water & soil conditions are all combined to control the growing cycles and manage the entire aqricultural process. Devices developed by Iponica can be installed in the field with multiple connection patterns such as;
Hardwired 5 wire devices.
Bluetooth solar powered devices,
WIFI devices
Local MCUs on the same PCB.
An example of operation is request from master to cluster. Each cluster comprises from 1 to 254 devices. A total of 1 to 1020 clusters can be addressed.
Example 1; Cluster 05 being a semi autonomous fish pond service arrangement at an aquaculture farm. It consists of water analysis, chemical dosing devices, aeration controller and automatic feeder. The master requests a daily summary of operation which is then compiled by the cluster & dispatched to the master comprising a full list of environmental conditions such as temp, humidity & rainfall, water analysis,feed quantities & intervals with total feed left in its hoppers, overall energy consumption and a report with an opinion on pond state with service requests for feed, water conditioners or reagents if applicable. Master then dispatched response on altered feed regime or pending service times.
Example 2; Cluster 126 being a single device that is a flow turbine metering water. The master requests lpm at 0830 hrs the previous day. Response is then processed & returned to master.
Example 3; Master is constant FCH polling(field cluster health). Two devices in queue respond. Cluster 07 (a GLIC system that consists of16 cherry tree pods) reports systemic failure of a float switch not activating in alloted time when system is flooded. It then makes request for servicing with a 4hr window from local controller derived on time of year and / or climatic conditions. Master diverts request to local service team to perform field maintenance. Response to C07 is that 24hrs response time is available . C07 then replies affirmative & begins local control consisting of doubling extraction time and reduced flooding to prevent drowning or drying of root system until repairs are effected.
This BUS system allows an operator or operators to delegate full autonomy to system or allow intervention when desired.