垂直農業在數位化的驅動下蓬勃發展

80 Acres Farms has made supplying fresh food for a growing population its mission. How? With fully automated, indoor vertical farming. As it turns out, controlled environment agriculture is also more sustainable than traditional farming methods.

Who said the plants we eat must be grown outdoors? All over the world, city populations are increasing in size. At the same time, more and more consumers are demanding clean, locally grown food. Metropolitan agricultural efforts seek to combine these trends with controlled environment agriculture.

A leader in this area is 80 Acres Farms, which grows everything from salad, microgreens, and herbs to tomatoes and baby cucumbers. Siemens supports the industrialization and scaling of the company's proprietary Loop platform from 80 Acres Farms’ technology-focused subsidiary Infinite Acres. This comprehensive solution encompasses crop management software, algorithms, environmental controls, robotics, and automation.

A typical vertical farm is stacked high with layers of plants. Picture fields stacked on top of fields lit with LED lighting at each level, efficiently utilizing the vertical space and significantly increasing food production. The conditions in a vertical farm are monitored around the clock to ensure the plants have the perfect amounts of light energy, carbon dioxide, nutrients, air, temperature, and humidity they need.

2023 年初，Siemens 與 80 Acres Farms 正式宣佈展開合作，共同推動 Infinite Acres 所研發的專利 Loop 系統邁向工業化與規模化。此合作以 Siemens Financial Services (SFS) 的股權投資為基礎，Siemens 與 80 Acres Farms 將攜手實施創新解決方案，包括作物管理軟體與演算法、環境控制、機器人技術與自動化。而這些僅是 Siemens 在此案中提供的眾多具體技術的一部分：

Siemens 在場域內提供智慧型配電設備與建築管理技術，可透過單一介面監控消防安全、生命安全、保全系統，以及配電系統本身。此外，Siemens 的進階工業自動化技術與邊緣運算裝置將用於生產線的自動化，同時以邊緣裝置與人機介面即時監控並更新農場的控制系統。

為深入掌握營運狀況，Siemens 與 80 Acres Farms 正合作打造數位孿生，模擬作物生長與生產流程。如此一來，即可預測不同環境條件下的作物生長情形，並更精準地配合出貨排程安排生長週期。