Min-Young Hwang1, Ki-Dong Park1, Ryu-Gap Lim2*
1Department of Smart Agricultural Engineering, Sunchon National University, Suncheon, Republic of Korea
2Department of Convergent Biosystems Engineering, Sunchon National University, Suncheon, Republic of Korea
Correspondence to Ryu-Gap Lim, E-mail: limrg11@scnu.ac.kr
Volume 5, Issue 2, Pages 59-68, June 2025.
Journal of Agricultural Machinery Engineering 2025, 5(2):59-68 https://doi.org/10.12972/jame.2025.5.2.2
Received on May 30, 2025, Revised on June 12, 2025, Accepted on June 13, 2025, Published on June 30, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).
In contrast to the existing large-scale smart farm system, this study was designed and manufactured a vertical farm system that can be used even in small indoor spaces such as homes or offices. Among the hydroponic cultivation methods, the system was designed and manufactured by dividing it into nutrient film technique (NFT) and deep water culture (DWC) cultivation methods. Experiments were conducted indoors without environmental management to identify optimized cultivation methods for romaine blue lettuce. For water environment control, the atmospheric environment and nutrient solution conditions were measured using EC, pH, and temperature and humidity sensors, and a growth survey was conducted. A comparison of production indicated that the DWC cultivation method yielded approximately 109 g higher than the NFT. In addition, a comparative analysis was performed on the leaf area through YOLO v8-based object detection using a camera. The optimal cultivation method of a small vertical farm that can be grown indoors without managing the weather environment was confirmed.
vertical farm, hydroponic, nutrient film technique (NFT), deep water culture (DWC)