Summary

Description

<p><strong>LED light sources are ideal for plant growth systems. However, commercially available multi-color LED illumination panels are designed and manufactured to produce a single particular illumination. These panels have very specific LED colors arranged in a very specific fashion. This limits the amount of color mixing, intensity variation, and spatial arrangement that is possible, precluding passive precision illumination. There is no feedback mechanism to detect spectral shifts caused by LED aging and additionally, there is no mechanism to modulate LEDs. It is also not possible to integrate an imaging system into these panels. Furthermore, these panels are commonly operated using high voltage AC power sources, which is not ideal in a potentially wet environment. Therefore, to address these issues, custom LED illumination panels were designed and developed for this project’s plant growth chamber.</strong></p><p><strong>A systematic approach was taken to determine the general size, specifications, and shape of a portable plant growth unit. Once the general size and shape were finalized, the detailed design of the support structure, aeroponics, and lighting subsystems were developed. Particular attention was given to heat transfer and the expected LED thermal environment.  Additionally, a </strong><strong>computational analysis was performed to determine optimal LED nodes placement so that two different uniform illumination fields could be yielded:  (1) for germinating plants, lower intensity light, and (2) for larger maturing plants, a brighter one.  Also, aeroponic studies were reviewed to identify an efficient and user-friendly system that would require minimal user involvement.</strong></p>