Integrated virtual and remote lab for greenhouse climate control

J. L. Rivas*, J. L. Guzmn*, F. Rodrguez*, M. Berenguel*, S. Dormido**

*Dpto. Lenguajes y Computacin. Universidad de Almera.
The Agrifood Campus of International Excellence (ceiA3, Spain)
Ctra. Sacramento s/n, Almera 04120
Email: [jlrivas, joguzman, frrodrig, beren]@ual.es

**Dpto. Informtica y Automtica. UNED
C/. Juan del Rosal 19, Madrid 28040
Email: sdormido@dia.uned.es

Abstract: This work presents the development of an integrated virtual and remote lab for teaching
greenhouse climate control and its inclusion in a collaborative platform. The virtual lab is based on a
greenhouse nonlinear model, which is used by students to understand modeling and control issues learned
in theoretical lessons. The remote lab is connected to a greenhouse scale model where it is possible to
perform typical climatic control tests. Both, virtual and remote labs, are integrated as one software
application in a collaborative environment that is available on Internet, allowing the tool be accessed at
anytime without space-temporal constraints and offering an educational platform where students can
work in the same way as they would be in a traditional laboratory.1
Keywords: control education, remote laboratory, virtual laboratory, greenhouse climate control.


1
This works This work has been partially funded by the following projects:
DPI2007-61068, DPI2010-21589-C05-04 and DPI2011-27818-C02-01
(financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and ERDF funds).
1. INTRODUCTION
The great development of Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) has allowed to renew and to evolve
traditional study techniques and teaching methods by adding
new educational tools, as for instance, forums, social network
for education, interactive tools, virtual labs, etc. These tools
allow educators to adapt to the new technological era and, at
the same time, to enhance the students motivation.
This technological evolution has been also presented in many
others fields, as the agro-alimentary field or agriculture,
where new advances in automation and control engineering
have been included to face the increasingly demanding
conditions of the sector (Rodrguez et al., 2006).
Followings these ideas, since some years ago, greenhouse
automation is being included as a subject in many agricultural
engineering curricula, and some software applications have
been developed to help agronomy students and researchers to
understand, implement, and use the new technological
advances in the sector. Agricultural engineering is one of the
most important degrees of the University of Almera (Spain),
and for that reason, a great effort has been performed during
the last years to develop new courses and new tools focused
on these ideas. A web-based remote lab for teaching
greenhouse climate control techniques was created at
(Guzmn et al., 2005a). Afterwards, a virtual course on
modern automation of agricultural systems was presented in
(Rodrguez et al., 2004), and a virtual lab developed in
(Guzman et al., 2005b). These three tools are being used
successfully in a combined manner for teaching and learning
issues related to greenhouse climatic control in undergraduate
and doctorate courses. However, according to the students
feedback and the teachers experience, they present a global
drawback regarding to usability. The problem is that these
three tools were developed in different platforms and the
graphical user interfaces (GUI), the interactive capabilities,
and the accessibility are quite different. Furthermore, the
connection between the tools is quite tedious from an
education point of view. Therefore, there is a need to
integrate all these tools in a unique platform in such a way
that the main graphical options are sharing by the virtual and
remote labs, and the tools are combined facilitating
information exchange.
Hence, this paper presents the development of an integrated
virtual and remote lab, which has been mainly developed
using Easy Java Simulation (EJS) (Esquembre, 2004). Then,
the resulting lab is integrated in a collaborative environment,
called eMersion (Gillet et al., 2005), and included in a
national Spanish network of virtual and remote labs,
AutomatL@bs (AutomatL@bs, 2009). There are some other
successful examples, in the control engineering field, that
have developed following this same idea and that can be
visited at AutomatL@bs (2009).
Proceedings of the 9th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control
Education
The International Federation of Automatic Control
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
978-3-902823-01-4/12/$20.00 2012 IFAC 264 10.3182/20120619-3-RU-2024.00025




The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the
virtual lab, describing its main features and its different
software components. Afterwards, section 3 presents the
remote lab, making a hardware description of the greenhouse
scale model and the software architecture involved to connect
the real plant with the remote lab. In section 4, the integration
of the labs in eMersion and AutomatL@bs is shown. Finally,
conclusions are exposed in section 5.
2. VIRTUAL LAB
As commented above, the virtual lab developed in this paper
is based on the preliminary version created in (Guzman et al.,
2005b). The virtual lab simulates the climate conditions of a
greenhouse based on a nonlinear model implemented in
Matlab/Simulink (Rodrguez, 2002). The previous version of
this lab could be only executed in local mode, being
necessary to have a local copy of the model for a specific
version of Matlab/Simulink. With the new version, the virtual
lab is prepared to be executed by several users
simultaneously through Internet, having only one copy of the
model in a server. To make that possible, the internal
software architecture of the lab has been modified and new
software components have been added. A description of the
process and different components needed to develop the
virtual lab are presented below.
2.1 Greenhouse climatic model
The dynamic behavior of the microclimate inside the
greenhouse is a combination of physical processes involving
energy transfer (radiation and heat) and mass balance (water
vapor fluxes and CO
2
concentration). On the other hand, the
crop growth and yield mainly depend, among other
conditions as irrigation and fertilizers, on the greenhouse
inside temperature, the PAR radiation, and the inside
humidity (see Figure 1). Thus, both climate conditions and
crop growth yield influence on each other, and their dynamic
behavior can be characterized by different time scales. These
phenomenons were implemented using a first-principle
model in (Rodrguez, 2002) in order to capture the main
dynamics of the greenhouse climate.
Inside temperature
Inside PAR radiation
Inside humidity
Vents
Heating system
Shade screen
Outside
temperature
Outside
radiation
Wind
speed
Wind
direction
Outside
humidity
Disturbances
Control variables Controlled variables
Leaf area index
Sky
temperature
Rain
Cover
temperature
Soil
temperature
Inside temperature
Inside PAR radiation
Inside humidity
Vents
Heating system
Shade screen
Outside
temperature
Outside
radiation
Wind
speed
Wind
direction
Outside
humidity
Disturbances
Control variables Controlled variables
Leaf area index
Sky
temperature
Rain
Cover
temperature
Soil
temperature

Fig. 1. Climatic control variables
Therefore, this model is used in the virtual lab to test
different control algorithms and to control the main variables
that influence in the production process. To carry out that
control, common actuators are used, such as zenital and
lateral ventilation, shade screen, and heating system.
Furthermore, real data from an industrial greenhouse are used
as inputs to simulate the model, being possible to modify the
parameters of the control algorithms and analyze the resulting
simulations.
2.2 Remote model management
As mentioned above, the virtual lab has been developed using
EJS. In EJS, model equations can be included directly in the
programming environment or can be connected to an existing
model implemented on Simulink. Therefore, as the model
developed in (Rodrguez, 2002) was implemented in
Simulink, this last option was used. When the first option is
selected to design the model, there is not problem to execute
the virtual lab in local or remote mode due to the model is
implied inside the applet. However, when the model is
connected with Simulink, the problem is that users need to
have a copy of the model together with the virtual lab, with
the associated drawbacks (different model versions among
users, needs to have Matlab/Simulink installed, etc.).
Thus, the aim is to have the Simulink model in a server, and
then each client of the virtual lab can access to that server to
execute an instance of the model remotely. To make that
possible is necessary to use an interface that can
communicate EJS variables to variables of the blocks in the
Simulink model and vice versa on Internet. That interface is
the server Java Internet Matlab (JIM), which was developed
by (Farias et al. 2006). JIM allows the remote
communication between a Simulink model and an application
developed in EJS, being this transparent for the user. The
communication is Client/Server and it is solved using TCP/IP
sockets. First, the JIM server is configured with all the
Simulink models that can be accessed remotely. Second, the
virtual lab in EJS is configured indicating the server IP
address and the name of the Simulink model. Then, input and
output variables of the model can be linked to EJS variables
remotely, where EJS client send input parameters to the
model, and the model returns the results of its simulation
through JIM. A global schema of communication between
EJS and Simulink using JIM is shown in Figure 2. As seen in
figure 2, now client EJS does not need to have installed
Matlab/Simulink because server JIM is responsible for
executing the model.


Fig. 2. Connection between EJS, JIM, and Matlab/Simulink
9th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
265




2.3 GUI description
The GUI of the virtual lab is mainly divided into three parts
as such as shown in Figure 3: a greenhouse synoptic, a panel
of parameters to interact with the simulation, and a set of
graphics, where the evolution of the most important variables
in the simulation and control signals is represented.
In the upper left part of the GUI is located the greenhouse
synoptic, which contains a virtual representation of a
greenhouse. In this zone it is possible to monitor the crop
growth and the effect of the control signals through the
actuators movements: natural ventilation, shade screen, and
heating based on a boiler. The lateral and zenital ventilations
are represented in sky blue colour and their positions are
changed taking into account the value of the associated
control signal. The actual value of the vents opening is shown
in percentage below the zenital ventilations and next to the
right side ventilation (see Figure 3). The shade screen is
located between the greenhouse and its cover; it is
represented in grey colour and its length is modified based on
the associated control signal. The third actuator is the
heating. This system has been represented with a boiler, a
pump and several pipes. A colour code is used: pump off/on -
blue/green; pipes off/on grey/based on their temperature.
The value of the pipes temperature is shown next to the
boiler. The crop growth is considered as a disturbance for the
system being possible to modify this parameter in the graphic
screen. Several plants are shown in the synoptic and their size
is changed based on the value of this disturbance.
Some effects have also been represented to distinguish
between the day and the night. During the day the sun
intensity is changed based on the solar radiation obtained
from the model or the disturbances database. During the
night, the sun changes to grey colour and several stars appear.

Fig. 3. GUI of the virtual lab
The set of parameters are available below the greenhouse
synoptic. The parameter panel is divided in three parts. On
the left side, the sliders to configure the setpoints of the
control algorithms are located together with an option to
choose between day or night condition of the simulation. On
the right side, the different control algorithms are available,
which are grouped into three tabs. The two first tabs contain
parameters related to temperature control with ventilation,
while the last tab has parameters to heating control and the
radiation control using a shade screen (see (Guzmn et. al.
2005b) for a detailed description of these parameters). The
third area is located below the control parameter tab. This
zone contains the buttons to control the execution, and also to
switch between virtual and remote lab (Button Connect or
Disconnect). When it is labelled as Connect, this button
allows the transition from virtual to remote lab, and when the
same button is labelled as Disconnect is used to back from
the remote version to the virtual one.
Finally, the right side of the GUI is dedicated to show six
graphics representing the evolution of the main variables
involved simulation, the controlled variables, the
disturbances, and the control signals. The graphics are
divided in three tabs. The first tab is focused on temperature
control, showing the inside temperature, the outside
temperature, the day and night setpoints, and the control
signals for the ventilation and heating systems. In the second
tab, the radiation and the humidity variables are shown.
Finally, the third tab is dedicated to show the wind speed and
a specific graphic to show the gain variation of the gain
scheduling controller based on the outside temperature and
the wind speed (Guzmn et. al. 2005b).
Notice that most of these options were available in the
previous version and detailed information can be found in
(Guzmn et. al. 2005b).
3. REMOTE LAB
The real plant to be accessed remotely consists in a
greenhouse scale model provided with several sensors and
actuators. A detailed description of this scale model can be
found in (Guzmn et al., 2005a). In (Guzmn et al., 2005a), a
preliminary web-based remote lab was developed using
LabVIEW as the server platform. This work presented
several drawbacks related to the temperature control since the
actuators were discontinuous and then the use of the control
algorithms was quite limited (considering the level given in
typical lessons where this greenhouse scale model is used).
Furthermore, this remote lab was totally different to virtual
lab previously described. Therefore, the students should learn
two different applications with different GUI and no
exchange information was possible. Hence, it was required to
develop a new remote lab to be integrated with the previous
virtual lab in the same application and looking for fulfilling
the requirements to be included in the AutomatL@bs project.
The following sections briefly describe the greenhouse scale
model emphasizing the new additional hardware included,
and the software architecture used to connect real plant and
remote lab.
9th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
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3.1 Greenhouse scale model
The greenhouse scale model, showed in Figure 4, was
developed under the framework of the DAMOCIA project
(see (Guzmn et al., 2005a) and the references therein).
Along these years, the original greenhouse scale model has
been modified, adding new sensors and actuators to improve
and increase its utility. Currently, the real plant has the
following sensors to measure the inside main variables:
inside air temperature and humidity, and inside PAR
radiation. An external meteorological station is also available
to allow measuring outside temperature, humidity, wind
speed and direction. Respect to additional hardware needed to
simulate the real conditions of a greenhouse, a 500 Watts
light is situated onto the scaled greenhouse to simulate the
solar radiation, adapting its intensity to the time system. To
simulate the falling temperature at night, a DC ventilator is
used at a constant voltage. The same idea, but using a small
heater, is used to simulate the rising temperature when
windows of the greenhouse are closed during the day. From
the actuators point of view, to control the daytime
temperature, the same DC ventilator used previously is used
adapting its voltage depending on the control signal, together
with a natural ventilation system with DC motors to control
the aperture. The temperature at night is also controlled,
adapting the power of the small heater, accompanied with a
set of red leds that are illuminated at the same time (to
facilitate the remote visualization during the night). To
control the radiation, a shade screen is available controlled by
a DC motor. All DC motors and leds are managed using a set
of relays controlled by the serial port, while an I/O card (ICP
DAS Company) is used to control and to acquire data from
rest of actuators and sensors.

Fig. 4. Greenhouse scale model
3.2 Remote control management
The programming environment LabVIEW has been used for
the input/output tasks in order to acquired data from the
sensors and modify the state of the actuators. With LabVIEW
is possible to control the hardware described above from a
computer using their corresponding drivers (VISA LabVIEW
driver for serial port, and ICP DAS LabVIEW driver for the
I/O card). The LabVIEW application created is responsible
for managing the data acquisition and the execution of
control loops in the scaled greenhouse. This application
implements the same options available in the virtual lab
commented in section 2.3, including, same options of
execution, control algorithms, and data output. It has been
done it this way in order to be integrated under the same
virtual lab GUI developed in EJS. This integration has been
possible by using JIL server (Vargas et al. 2009), which
allows communicating parameters remotely between EJS and
LabVIEW. The philosophy is the same applied in the virtual
lab between the Simulink model, JIM server, and EJS, but
now, instead of a model, the process is represented by the real
plant, and where JIL server plays the role of the JIM server.
Figure 5 shows a scheme of the architecture used for that
purpose.

Fig. 5. Global scheme of the remote lab
Once the LabVIEW application is created, it can be published
on JIL, and theirs input/output parameters are then
automatically available to be referenced from EJS,
abstracting developers from low-level details of
programming. To access published LabVIEW variables, in
EJS it is necessary to indicate the IP address and port of the
JIL server, and location of the LabVIEW application inside
the server. Afterwards, EJS variables can be linked to the
LabVIEW ones. Following this process, the GUI described
for the virtual lab in section 2.3 can be reused to control the
real plant in exactly the same manner, with the same
execution options, and using the same parameters for control
algorithms. This is one of the most important contributions of
this paper, since now the same GUI is used for virtual and
remote activities.
3.3 Remote capabilities
One of the most important aspects in a remote lab is that
users can obtain visual feedback of what is happening in the
real plant. For this purpose, the remote lab is associated with
a video server together with an IP camera, which is located
inside the scaled greenhouse, allowing users to watch the
actions of actuator in real time. Images captured from the
camera are integrated in the user interface explained in
9th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
267




section 2.3, replacing the synoptic of the simulation for the
remote lab. The GUI of the remote lab can be seen in Figure
6. Another feature offered by the remote lab is the possibility
to perform experiments in order to get the model of the real
plant, so that users can calculate the parameters for the
controllers and algorithms to control the climate correctly.
Therefore, the remote lab has available a new tab (open-loop
steps) in the control panel parameters through which users
can carry out open-loop steps on the heater and the ventilator.
The user has also available a dynamic menu on the upper side
of the application (eJournal) with two options to save the
data during the experiments (Save graph, Save data/Stop
Save data). Data obtained through this menu are saved in the
personal users space inside the collaborative environment, so
users can manage data after experiments. The eJournal menu
is also available for the virtual lab to save data of the
simulations.

Fig. 6. GUI of the remote lab
4. COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT
Virtual and remote lab presented in this work has been
designed to be included in the AutomatL@bs project.
AutomatL@bs is a network of virtual and remote labs for
teaching control and automation, which consists of labs and
educational resources provided by universities that comprise
it. Users of these universities can use any lab of the network.
As main feature, all labs that make up the project
AutomatL@bs are developed by following certain design
guidelines and technology, what allows to unify them all
within an educational collaborative environment based on
Web called eMersion (eMersion, 2004; Gillet, et. al. 2005).
This integration allows users to work with all labs in the
same way, without caring about where they really are located.
Moreover, eMersion provides a virtual workspace for users
(eJournal), where they can save and load their experiments
and simulations, or share their knowledge with rest of users,
including teachers. This feature gives to users the opportunity
to behave as if they were in a magisterial class at the real
laboratory. Other important aspect, from the educational
point of view, is that all labs have associated a complete
guide with information, describing the GUI of the lab, tasks
to do, and a complete explanation of processes that occur in
the real plant with some appendix. All these documents have
been carefully designed to allow students make the practical
experiences in an autonomous way at their own pace
engineering (AutomatL@bs, 2009).
To guarantee exclusive user access to remote labs without
conflicts, AutomatL@bs has a reservation management
system in which user can see the availability of a selected
remote lab, and book in consequence. There are also
restrictions in time about the number of hours that a user can
book the remote lab continuously; avoiding one user can grab
the remote lab.
Currently, the virtual and remote lab present in this paper is
integrated in AutomatL@bs, in order to be available for
universities belonging to the project in next academic year.
Figure 7 show an image of the lab in remote mode integrated
in the collaborative environment.
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented the development of a virtual and
remote lab for greenhouse climate control. The resulting lab
is based on preliminary versions of virtual and remote labs
existing at the University of Almera. These two previous
labs have been modified and improved in order to have a
unique software application covering virtual and remote
capabilities. In this way, the server architecture has been
modified where the nonlinear model is accessed remotely and
where remote accessed to the real system has been also
included in the EJS application. Two bridge applications, JIM
and JIL, have been used to make it possible. The integration
in one application, and, with only one GUI, not only solves
problems presented with previous labs, but also reports some
advantages:
Now, users only have to learn once how the GUI works,
since both virtual and remote labs share the same
configuration parameters and the same graphics.
Users can understand better that same controllers can be
applied on a model and on a real system..
Furthermore, the new lab has been development using EJS
and following the required design guidelines to be integrated
in the AutomatL@bs project using eMersion. Therefore, the
resulting lab can take all advantages that a collaborative
environment as eMersion provides, and being, at the same
time, available to be used by other universities of
AutomatL@bs network.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Mr. Hctor Vargas and Mr.
Gonzalo Farias for their help and suggestions.
9th IFAC Symposium Advances in Control Education
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
268




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Fig. 7. Virtual and remote lab integrated in the collaborative environment eMersion.
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Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 19-21, 2012
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