Abstract: A vertical farming structure having vertical grow towers and associated conveyance mechanisms for moving the vertical grow towers through a controlled environment, while being exposed to controlled conditions, such as lighting, airflow, humidity and nutritional support. The present disclosure describes a reciprocating cam mechanism that provides a cost-efficient mechanism for conveying vertical grow towers in the controlled environment. The reciprocating cam mechanism can be arranged to increase the spacing of the grow towers as they are conveyed through the controlled environment to index the crops growing on the towers. The present disclosure also describes a tower shuttle mechanism that provides operational flexibility by decoupling the loading and unloading operations of the grow towers from the vertical farming structure and, therefore, allowing multiple grow towers to be extracted for harvesting in a batch process before loading new grow towers into the vertical farming structure in a separate process.

Abstract: Facility layouts and configurations for an automated crop production system for controlled environment agriculture. In particular implementations, the core of the facility comprises a controlled growth environment and a central processing system. The controlled growth environment includes systems for exposing crops housed in modules, such as grow towers, to controlled environmental conditions. The central processing system may include various stations and functionality both for preparing crop-bearing modules to be inserted in the controlled growth environment, for harvesting crops from the crop-bearing modules after they have been extracted from the controlled growth environment, and for cleaning or washing crop-bearing modules for re-use. The controlled growth environment may include vertical farming structure having vertical grow towers and associated conveyance mechanisms for moving the vertical grow towers along one or more grow lines.

Abstract: Certain aspects of the method may comprise generating at least one control signal that may be utilized to control at least a first of a plurality of received spatially multiplexed communication signals. An amplitude and/or phase of the first received spatially multiplexed communication signal may be adjusted via the generated control signal so that the amplitude and/or phase of the first received spatially multiplexed communication signal may be equivalent to an amplitude and/or phase of a second received spatially multiplexed communication signal. The amplitude of the first received spatially multiplexed communication signal is adjusted within the processing path used to process the first received spatially multiplexed communication signal.

Abstract: A method and system for controlling processes executed by one or more processors in a processing system comprises identifying any processes being executed by the or each processor, comparing any identified processes with stored information on one or more processes, and controlling the execution of the processes by the or each processor in dependence upon the outcome of the comparison. A user interface is generated in dependence upon the results of the comparison to allow for manual override control of the execution of a process.