Study of the Application of Blender for Simulation of a Closed-loop Image-based Greenhouse Supplemental Lighting Control

Kip Nieman, Wayne State University
Helen E. Durand, Wayne State University

© 2024 The Authors. Peer Reviewed Conference Proceeding, 12th IFAC Symposium on Advanced Control of Chemical Processes (ADCHEM 2024), Toronto, Canada, July 14-17, 2024. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-ND, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Originally published at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2024.08.389.

Abstract

Image-based control and sensing has been applied in a wide variety of next generation manufacturing fields. Utilizing methods of simulating closed-loop image-based control may be advantageous for improving control performance and design without the need for an experimental setup. One software capable of these simulations is the open-source 3D modeling software Blender, which has many capabilities aided by a Python API. This work explores the use of Blender as an image-based control test bed, where both the process and the controller are simulated, in the context of a greenhouse supplemental lighting control system.