Crop response-driven intelligent coordination and optimization control of greenhouse microclimate factors
Abstract
How to achieve precise and coordinated control of greenhouse microclimate factors under strong coupling and nonlinear conditions remains a key challenge in protected agriculture. To address this issue, this study integrates intelligent control and multi-objective optimization to regulate greenhouse temperature and humidity in a coordinated manner. A mechanistic model of a Venlo-type greenhouse was first developed in Matlab R2022a. Then, three control methods, namely LQR, MPC, and NMPC, were compared, and NMPC showed the best performance. Finally, NSGA-II was introduced to optimize the objective function weights of NMPC, further improving the control results. Compared with NMPC alone, the optimized method reduced the RMSE and MAE by 0.3366 and 0.0812 for temperature control, and by 0.2192 and 0.6853 for humidity control, respectively. The proposed method improves the precision and coordination of greenhouse environmental control and provides support for efficient greenhouse production. Ultimately, this study offers a promising technical paradigm for transitioning traditional greenhouse management towards highly autonomous and sustainable precision agriculture.
Keywords: intelligent greenhouse, crop response, environmental regulation, coordinated optimization
DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20261903.9239
Citation: Liu Q H, Zhang Y, Wang B R, Wang L N. Crop response-driven intelligent coordination and optimization control of greenhouse microclimate factors. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2026; 19(3): 133–138.
References
[1] Chen W H, You F Q. Smart greenhouse control under harsh climate conditions based on data-driven robust model predictive control with principal component analysis and kernel density estimation. Journal of Process Control, 2021; 107: 103–113.
[2] Rizwan A, Khan A N, Ahmad R, Kim D. Optimal environment control mechanism based on OCF connectivity for efficient energy consumption in greenhouse. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 2023; 10(6): 5035–5049.
[3] Rizwan A, Khan A N, Ibrahim M, Ahmad R, Iqbal N, Kim D H. Optimal environment control and fruits delivery tracking system using blockchain for greenhouse. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2024; 220: 108889.
[4] Abedrabboh O, Koç M, Biçer Y. Modelling and analysis of a renewable energy-driven climate-controlled sustainable greenhouse for hot and arid climates. Energy Conversion and Management, 2022; 273: 116412.
[5] Zhang S H, Guo Y, Zhao H J, Wang Y, Chow D, Fang Y. Methodologies of control strategies for improving energy efficiency in agricultural greenhouses. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2020; 274: 122695.
[6] He F, Si C Q, Ding X M, Gao Z J, Gong B B, Qi F, et al. Optimization of Chinese solar greenhouse building parameters based on CFD simulation and entropy weight method. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2023; 16(6): 48–55.
[7] Singhal R, Kumar R, Neeli S. Receding horizon control based on prioritised multi-operational ranges for greenhouse environment regulation. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2021; 180: 105840.
[8] Adesanya M A, Obasekore H, Rabiu A, Na W H, Ogunlowo Q O, Akpenpuun T D, et al. Deep reinforcement learning for PID parameter tuning in greenhouse HVAC system energy optimization: A TRNSYS-Python cosimulation approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 2024; 252: 124126.
[9] Zhang G X, Zhang L, Li X X, Gong Z W, Dong Y H. An adaptive control method for the covers on the south roof of Chinese solar greenhouses: A case study of insulation blankets. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2023; 209: 107861.
[10] Jiang Y L, Zhu S Y, Xu Q M, Yang B, Guan X P. Hybrid modeling-based temperature and humidity adaptive control for a multi-zone HVAC system. Applied Energy, 2023; 334: 120622.
[11] Jin X Z, Ma Y S, Che W W. An improved model-free adaptive control for nonlinear systems: An LMI approach. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 2023; 447: 127910.
[12] Sun J Y, Liu X, Bäck T, Xu Z B. Learning adaptive differential evolution algorithm from optimization experiences by policy gradient. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 2021; 25(4): 666–680.
[13] Xian B, Gu X, Pan X L. Data driven adaptive robust attitude control for a small size unmanned helicopter. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 2022; 177: 109205.
[14] Zhang S, Zhou P, Xie Y F, Chai T Y. Improved model-free adaptive predictive control method for direct data-driven control of a wastewater treatment process with high performance. Journal of Process Control, 2022; 110: 11–23.
[15] Ullah I, Fayaz M, Aman M, Kim D. Toward autonomous farming—A novel scheme based on learning to prediction and optimization for smart greenhouse environment control. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 2022; 9(24): 25300–25323.
[16] Su Y P, Xu L H, Goodman E D. Multi-layer hierarchical optimisation of greenhouse climate setpoints for energy conservation and improvement of crop yield. Biosystems Engineering, 2021; 205: 212–233.
[17] Liu T, Yuan Q Y, Wang Y G. Hierarchical optimization control based on crop growth model for greenhouse light environment. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2021; 180: 105854.
[18] Lin D, Zhang L J, Xia X H. Model predictive control of a Venlo-type greenhouse system considering electrical energy, water and carbon dioxide consumption. Applied Energy, 2021; 298: 117163.
[19] Wei Z C, Calautit J K. Field experiment testing of a low-cost model predictive controller (MPC) for building heating systems and analysis of phase change material (PCM) integration. Applied Energy, 2024; 360: 122750.
[20] Svensen J L, Cheng X D, Boersma S, Sun C C. Chance-constrained stochastic MPC of greenhouse production systems with parametric uncertainty. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2024; 217: 108578.
[21] Wang L N, Li X, Xu M J, Guo Z W, Wang B R. Study on optimization model control method of light and temperature coordination of greenhouse crops with benefit priority. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2023; 210: 107892.
[22] Huang S, Yan H F, Zhang C, Wang G Q, Acquah S J, Yu J J, et al. Modeling evapotranspiration for cucumber plants based on the Shuttleworth-Wallace model in a Venlo-type greenhouse. Agricultural Water Management, 2020; 228: 105861.
[23] Wan X B, Li B, Chen D Y, Long X Y, Deng Y F, Wu H R, et al. Irrigation decision model for tomato seedlings based on optimal photosynthetic rate. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2021; 14(5): 115–122.
[24] Zhang J, Liu X H, Wang Q. Effects of maize straw biochar application on soil physical properties, morph-physiological attributes, yield and water use efficiency of greenhouse tomato. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2023; 16(3): 151–159.
[25] Tian Y, Si L C, Zhang X Y, Cheng R, He C, Tan K C, et al. Evolutionary large-scale multi-objective optimization: A survey. ACM Computing Surveys, 2021; 54(8): 1–34.
[26] Tian Y, Zhang X Y, Wang C, Jin Y C. An evolutionary algorithm for large-scale sparse multiobjective optimization problems. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 2020; 24(2): 380–393.
[27] Zhang R N, Lu W, Jian X L, Luo H. Intelligent sorting method for assembly line based on visual positioning and model predictive control of robotic arm. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2023; 16(4): 207–214.
[28] Wang L N. Greenhouse microclimate control optimization based on improved NSGA-H algorithm. In: 2020 Chinese Control And Decision Conference (CCDC), Hefei: IEEE, 2020; pp.2365–2370.
[29] Prieto J, Ajnannadhif R M, Olmo P F D, Coronas A. Integration of a heating and cooling system driven by solar thermal energy and biomass for a greenhouse in Mediterranean climates. Applied Thermal Engineering, 2023; 221: 119928.
[30] Wang L N, Xu M J, Zhang Y, Wang B R. Benefit-prioritized greenhouse environment dual-time domain multi-layered closed-loop control strategy. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2024; 225: 109284.
[31] Wang L N, Xu P G, Li J B, Ekaterina S, Wang B R. Stability analysis of human hand grasping for the design of pneumatic muscle-driven end effector targeting citrus picking. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2025; 239: 110942.
[32] Chen S L, Liu A L, Tang F, Hou P, Yuan P. A review of environmental control strategies and models for modern agricultural greenhouses. Sensors, 2025; 25(5): 1388.
[33] Le H L, Bui V T. AI-enhanced nonlinear predictive control for smart greenhouses: A performance comparison of forecast and warm-start strategies. Applied Sciences, 2025; 15(14): 7988.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
IJABE is an international peer reviewed, open access journal, adopting Creative Commons Copyright Notices as follows.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).