Copyright @ IF AC Modelling and Control in Agriculture,

Horticulture and Post-Harvest Processing, Wageningen,

The Netherlands, 2000

MODELlNG pH AND ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY IN HYDROPONICS

USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Konstantinos P. Ferentinos, Louis D. Albright, Norman R. Scott

Department ofAgricultural and Biological Engineering

Comell University
Ithaca, NY 14853, U.S.A.

Abstract: A model for predicting pH and Electrical Conductivity (EC) responses of a

deep trough hydroponic system is developed. Artificial Neural Networks are used as the
method of modeling. The Feedforward Neural Network Model has 9 inputs (pH, EC,
nutrient solution temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, light intensity, plant age,
amount of added acid and amount of added base) and two outputs (pH and EC of the next
time step). The most suitable and accurate combination of network architectures and
backpropagation training algorithms was the one-hidden-Iayer with 9 hidden nodes
architecture trained with the quasi-Newton backpropagation algorithm. During the testing
of the model using new input data, one step ahead predictions of pH were within 0.01 and
EC within 5 microS · cm-I. Copyright © 2000 IFAC

Keywords: Neural Network models, agriculture, pH, electrical conductivity.

I. INTRODUCTION one is able to collect extensive sets of data about the

This paper deals with development of a Neural
Network model of a deep trough hydroponic system
in a greenhouse (Ferentinos, 1999). The cultivated
plant is lettuce and the whole process is monitored
and controlled in the greenhouse in order to collect
the data necessary for the parameterization of the
model.
Although quite interesting research has been
completed in the area of nutrient uptake by plants and
the dynamics of growing (Barber and Silberbush,
1984; Wild and Breeze, 1981; Lawlor, 1991), Neural
Networks (NN) have not been used for mode ling
these kind of processes. They have been used in
several other systems, including a variety of
biological or environmental ones (Bhat et al., 1990;
Seginer et al., 1994; Thompson and Kramer, 1994;
Sridhar et al., 1996; Lin and Jang, 1998), but not in
the specific area of plant cultivation. As the
knowledge of the dynamics of a hydroponically
grown plant is limited, and because hydroponic
systems can be monitored with a level of detail that
process, the NN approach seems reasonable and
appropriate.
All this data was collected during the whole growing
period of the plant, i. e. the 25 days that the lettuce
plants were in the ponds of the hydroponic system.
This information consisted of measurements of the
pH, the electrical conductivity (EC) and the
temperature of the nutrient solution, as well as the
temperature, the relative humidity and the light
intensity inside the greenhouse. Also, additional
information was given by the control signals of the
controlled parameter, that is the pH.
2. MA TERlALS AND METHODS
Artificial Neural Networks (NN) are systems or
models that try to estimate or approximate a function
from sample data. NN structure is based on our
present understanding of biological nervous systems
(Lippmann, 1987).

173
Modeling using a NN consists of three main steps:
selection of the NN architecture, training of the NN
and testing of the trained NN. Of course this assumes
that the type of the NN, for example feedforward or
recurrent NN , or the basic type of activation
functions, for example sigmoid or Radial Basis
Function (RBF) are already chosen.
2. 1 The Modeled System
The growing plant was lettuce (Lactuca sativa, var.
Vivaldi) and the system was deep trough hydroponics
in a greenhouse. Information about the physical
process to be mode led was collected by measuring
the most important parameters that affect its
dynamics. These parameters can be divided into three
categories:
- System variables (pH, electrical conductivity (EC)
and the temperature of the nutrient solution).
Indoor Environment disturbances (air
temperature, relative humidity and light intensity
of the greenhouse environment at plant level).
- Control signals (the pH control signals of added
acid and base).
The deep trough hydroponic system that was used
consisted of three small growing ponds (tanks). Each
pond had an area of approximately 1.0 m 2 and a
volume of 0.4 m 3 and was completely independent
from the others. In that way, the systems could be
monitored and controlled in parallel and so more data
sets could be constructed.
The plants were transplanted to the ponds 10 days
after seeding and the growing period in the
hydroponic system was 25 days, i. e. they were
harvested on the 35th day after the sowing of the
seeds. A respacing of the plants took place 10 days
after they were transplanted into the ponds. For the
nutrient solution, reverse osmosis water was used.
The monitoring and control system consists of a
personal computer (PC) running LabVIEW software
(available from National Instruments), a data
acquisition board connected to the computer and
several meters, sensors and actuators connected to the
board. The operational features of the greenhouse
section that affect the environment are monitored and
controlled by the central greenhouse computer. For
each pond there is a metering pump used to control
the pH of the nutrient solution by adding acid or base.
2.2 Neural Network Model
The behavior of the system described before and the
physical relationships that govern this behavior (such
as plant nutrient uptakes, possible chemical reactions
in the solution, or plant dynamics) are not well
174
known, so the construction of a mechanistic
(analytical) model of the process is extremely
difficult and problematic. Also, hydroponics is
amenable to collecting extensive sets of data about
the process. As a consequence, a black-box model
with use of neural networks was considered as the
most appropriate, accurate and reliable way to deal
with this modeling situation.
The goal was the most accurate representation of the
physical system via this NN model. So the NN model
had to identify the dynamics of the physical process,
i.e., the hydroponic system. More specifically, the
model was used mostly for prediction of state
variables rather than simulation. As inputs, major
parameters that affect the dynamics of the process
were considered. As outputs, the parameters that give
information about the system's state and condition
were considered. This specific NN model was used as
a predictor of the system's response, so the
parameters described before as outputs were also
used as inputs to the network, and the outputs were
actually the predicted future values of these
parameters.
Network Design
The inputs of the NN consisted of the three categories
of measured parameters mentioned in the previous
section. In addition, there was a fourth category that
consisted of only one input. This was the plant age
estimator. The dynamics of the system change with
time because of plant growth, so the model should
take into consideration the age of the plants. This
leads to an adaptive NN with the plant age estimator
being the adaptation parameter. The plant age was
measured in 12 hours intervals. The growing period
of lettuce in the hydroponic system was 25 days, so
the plant age estimator's values ranged from I to 50.
The outputs of the NN were the predicted values of
pH and EC of the nutrient solution averaged over the
next twenty-minute period (time step). These
variables give information of the system's condition
and response.
Thus, the NN has in total 9 inputs and 2 outputs.
Each input variable earns 1,800 elements in each 25
day growing period. The networks that were tested
for the model were one-hidden-Iayer (I-HL) and two-
hidden-layer (2-HL) networks. The activation
functions that were used and tested, were either
logistic or hyperbolic tangent functions. The output
nodes were linear. The number of hidden nodes in the
I-HL networks that were tested varied from 4 to 10,
while in the 2-HL networks several combinations
were tried. All network parameters (weights plus
biases) can be denoted by a vector ~ EWe RP,
where p is the total number of parameters of the
network (Fine, 1998).
accurately predicts the next time step values of pH
and EC of the nutrient solution in normal operating
conditions. More specifically, the following
conclusions can be drawn:
- Feedforward neural networks are suitable for
mode ling pH and EC dynamics of hydroponic
systems. Once the network is trained with a
satisfactory amount of data, it can predict very
accurately the one step ahead future state of the
system.
- Relatively small network architectures perform
better than large ones for this modeling problem.
More specifically I-HL architectures outperform 2-
HL architectures. The most suitable architecture
proved to be that with 9 nodes in the one and only
hidden layer.
Quasi-Newton multidimensional minimization
algorithm gives the best training results when it is
used in the backpropagation training algorithm,
compared to steepest-descent and Levenberg-
Marquardt algorithms.
- The predicted pH and EC values are accurate
enough that the NN model could be considered to be
used in other systems that could use information of
the possible future state of a process. A good
example of systems is a fault-detection system. A
system could read the current state of the process as
well as a prediction of its future state, and compare
them with the actual process status to detect a
possible malfunction. Another example is a control
system that "looks" not only into the current status of
the process but also into its future state (provided by
the NN model) and adjusts the control actions
according to this future state too.
Simpler prediction methods, like linear
extrapolation or "lazy man" prediction, gave similar
RMS Errors through the whole testing set, but they
perform poorly in situations where the control
parameters of the system formalize the final system's
response and produce relatively rapid changes in the
variables to be predicted. Because the predictions of a
system like this are normally useful in on-line
systems such as the ones described before, good
performance in situations like these is required. Thus,
the NN model is considered to be necessary.
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