Smart chip controls barn temperature

Phan Minh Tan, a female scientist at the Department of Automation Technology, Institute of Information Technology (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology), has successfully researched and manufactured a smart electronic chip THDP-1 and THT. -first.

According to engineer Phan Minh Tan, this chip is manufactured on SPoC technology (programmable system on one chip), can measure temperature from 40 - 125 ^o C and humidity from 0-100%. All of this work is done on the computer.

Preserving high technology

Engineer Phan Minh Tan.(Photo: TTO)

At present, when the public sector, agriculture is developing strongly, it is very important to control temperature and humidity when preserving and storing public and agricultural products in warehouses. Normally, with stored goods, the temperature and humidity in the warehouse must always remain at a certain level.

In our country, many store stalls still follow manual methods. When purchasing fresh paddy to store, biochemical process still takes place, so the temperature and humidity increase rapidly. To check the temperature and humidity in the barn, every day a measuring device is attached to the end of a barn and poked into the grain at different points, then recorded in the book.

This method has many limitations, because of the temperature measurement, the humidity will not be accurate, the temperature and humidity in the paddy are not measured, especially at the bottom, do not monitor the temperature and humidity one continuous, regular way . Therefore, the grain at the bottom of the warehouse is often broken.

Therefore, according to engineer Tan, the manufacture of electronic chips is a step to break the information technology technology in preserving agricultural products after harvest. In fact, the THDP-1 and THT-1 are very simple devices such as automatically obtaining signals from the probe, calculating and then displaying the humidity, temperature and dew point parameters on a small screen. . The data will be updated 24 hours a day and transmitted to the server. Each device will be marked with a number. When data is needed, the supervisor simply turns on the computer at a center and enters the program to receive data from those small screens.

In addition, the device automatically alarms if the parameter exceeds the threshold and automatically stores the measured information for 2 hours / time, helping the manager to know and adjust the temperature of the barn by the blower system. or suck out moisture .

Application of many fields

So far, these products have been tested and tested in two grain depots in Vinh Bao district (Hai Phong) since June 2005 and are still operating well. Here, each barn is fitted with 15 equipment per five stakes, each with three devices attached) and flooded in paddy in five different locations. Every day the operator just sits at the office and knows the entire temperature and humidity of the points in the paddy in the warehouses. The paddy has been put into storage at temperatures up to 45-49 ^o C, humidity over 90%, and in early July 2006 (after one month) the temperature has dropped to 36-41 ^o C and humidity is about 55 -74%.

These devices are connected to each other through the transmission path to a computer, the connection range can be extended up to 1,200m. Engineer Tan said, THDP-1 and THT-1 devices can be installed in large granaries with a volume of 220-230 tons / warehouse.

The cost of installing these devices is about 120-150 USD, while the price of imported equipment is 300-400 USD, the price of each chip of PSoC is 5-8 USD. Tan engineers affirmed that compared to imported equipment, these chips are equally effective, even easier - more applicable in preservation technology in our country. These two chips consume very little energy, and the installation is also very convenient (the power used for devices is 9-15V). In addition to measuring temperature, humidity, dew point in granaries, the THDP-1 can also automatically measure and test the above parameters in agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, weapons, industrial equipment and hospital, laboratory .

On the other hand, the system can also be applied to high-tech agricultural production processes such as: automatic watering of plants in flower growing greenhouses, in clean vegetable production areas, mushroom farms.