An Architecture of Cloud Control System and Its Application in Greenhouse Environment

At present, the control system design and various control system platforms mainly focus on the system construction and hardware and software configuration of the "controller". The main focus for the engineers is the computer that running various control algorithms, and the controlled object (or process) is generally placed at the far end. In order to improve the performance of the controller, it is necessary to continuously enhance the software and hardware configuration of the computer control system, meanwhile, the long-distance transmission of the signals also requires a large number of cables, all these measures cause the construction and operation costs of the control system relatively high. This paper proposes a new architecture of cloud computing-based control system, i.e. “cloud control system (CCS)”, which places the controller in the remote site to make the control system design around the controlled object (or process), reducing the construction and operation costs of the control system and making the control more intelligent and flexible. As an application case study, the CCS is applied to control the greenhouse environment with the developed software and hardware, and the improved PID (Proportion-Integral-Derivative) is used to control the parameters of greenhouse. The good controlled results are achieved and verified the effectiveness of CCS.