The Adaptive Vertical Farm as an Efficient Tool for the Cultivation of Multiple Crops in Space

The adaptive vertical farm is proposed to produce a variety of fresh food for astronauts during missions or future space installations. It is an innovative vertical greenhouse that relies on the idea of gradually adjusting the distance between the shelves moving them automatically according to the growth of the plants. We refer to this concept as adaptive principle. In more detail, an optimal scheduling algorithm of sowings is presented for the cultivation of two types of crops using mixed-integer linear programming to fully exploit the available vertical space and maximize the production yield. Numerical results are reported in a case study involving the cultivation of wheat and lettuce to showcase the effectiveness of the approach in comparison with a vertical farm with fixed shelves.