{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T19:36:30Z","timestamp":1773344190469,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,27]],"date-time":"2021-12-27T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1640563200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Plant Factory is a newly emerging industry aiming at transforming crop production to an unprecedented model by leveraging industrial automation and informatics. However, today\u2019s plant factory and vertical farming industry are still in a primitive phase, and existing industrial cyber-physical systems are not optimal for a plant factory due to diverse application requirements on communication, computing and artificial intelligence. In this paper, we review use cases and requirements for future plant factories, and then dedicate an architecture that incorporates the communication and computing domains to plant factories with a preliminary proof-of-concept, which has been validated by both academic and industrial practices. We also call for a holistic co-design methodology that crosses the boundaries of communication, computing and artificial intelligence disciplines to guarantee the completeness of solution design and to speed up engineering implementation of plant factories and other industries sharing the same demands.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22010147","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,28]],"date-time":"2021-12-28T01:20:43Z","timestamp":1640654443000},"page":"147","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":22,"title":["Plant Factory: A New Playground of Industrial Communication and Computing"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5742-1266","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yu","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Science and Technology, Campus Norrk\u00f6ping, Link\u00f6ping University, 60221 Norrk\u00f6ping, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sepehr","family":"Mousavi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"SweGreen AB, 11259 Stockholm, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7474-4294","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhibo","family":"Pang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"ABB Corporate Research, 72226 V\u00e4ster\u00e5s, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0931-7584","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhongjun","family":"Ni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Science and Technology, Campus Norrk\u00f6ping, Link\u00f6ping University, 60221 Norrk\u00f6ping, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4136-0817","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Magnus","family":"Karlsson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Science and Technology, Campus Norrk\u00f6ping, Link\u00f6ping University, 60221 Norrk\u00f6ping, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1401-4636","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shaofang","family":"Gong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Science and Technology, Campus Norrk\u00f6ping, Link\u00f6ping University, 60221 Norrk\u00f6ping, Sweden"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,27]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kozai, T., Niu, G., and Takagaki, M. 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