Research and Design of Hybrid Optimized Backpropagation (BP) Neural Network PID Algorithm for Integrated Water and Fertilizer Precision Fertilization Control System for Field Crops

• Published in: Agronomy (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 5; p. 1423
• Main Authors: Zhu, Fenglei, Zhang, Lixin, Hu, Xue, Zhao, Jiawei, Meng, Zihao, Zheng, Yu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.05.2023
• Subjects: Agricultural industry; Agricultural production; Agrochemicals; Algorithms; Aquatic resources; Back propagation networks; BP neural network; China; Control algorithms; Control systems; Control systems design; Control theory; Controllers; Cotton; Crops; Design optimization; Ecological effects; Efficiency; Environmental degradation; Expected values; Fertilization; Fertilizer application; Fertilizers; Flow rates; Flow velocity; Genetic algorithms; hybrid optimization algorithm; Integrated control; Irrigation; Mathematical models; Microcontrollers; Neural networks; Optimization algorithms; Particle swarm optimization; precision control; Process controls; Proportional integral derivative; Software; Tomatoes; Valves; water–fertilizer integration; China
• ISSN: 2073-4395; 2073-4395
• DOI: 10.3390/agronomy13051423

China’s field crops such as cotton, wheat, and tomato have been produced on a large scale, but their cultivation process still adopts more traditional manual fertilization methods, which makes the use of chemical fertilizers in China high and causes waste of fertilizer resources and ecological environmental damage. To address the above problems, a hybrid optimization of genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization (GA–PSO) is used to optimize the initial weights of the backpropagation (BP) neural network, and a hybrid optimization-based BP neural network PID controller is designed to realize the accurate control of fertilizer flow in the integrated water and fertilizer precision fertilization control system for field crops. At the same time, the STM32 microcontroller-based precision fertilizer application control system for integrated water and fertilizer application of large field crops was developed and the performance of the controller was verified experimentally. The results show that the controller has an average maximum overshoot of 5.1% and an average adjustment time of 68.99 s, which is better than the PID and PID control algorithms based on BP neural network (BP–PID) controllers; among them, the hybrid optimization of PID control algorithm based on BP neural network by particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm(GA–PSO–BP–PID) controller has the best-integrated control performance when the fertilizer application flow rate is 0.6m3/h.