Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100

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Applied Soft Computing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/asoc

Modeling of a greenhouse prototype using PSO and differential

evolution algorithms based on a real-time LabViewTM application
Alfonso Pérez-González ∗ , Ofelia Begovich-Mendoza, Javier Ruiz-León
CINVESTAV IPN Campus Guadalajara, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In general, to obtain an adequate mathematical model of a greenhouse is a difficult task due to the
Received 7 November 2015 complexity of the involved equations that describe the dynamics of the system, and the required high
Received in revised form 30 June 2017 number of physical parameters, which are complicated or even impossible to measure. In these situa-
Accepted 13 October 2017
tions, estimation methods are commonly used to obtain a suitable approximation for those parameters.
Available online 20 October 2017
This paper presents the application and comparison of a collection of methods based on Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE), using them as the tools to identify the parameters
Keywords:
that complete a proposed mathematical model for a greenhouse. These parameters are sought aiming to
Particle Swarm Optimization
Differential Evolution
approximate the dynamic behavior of a greenhouse physical prototype building in CINVESTAV Campus
Greenhouse model Guadalajara, by using the heuristic algorithms in order to minimize a proposed error function, which
LabViewTM application considers as arguments estimations and measurements of the two more representative dynamics of the
Real-time application climate conditions inside a greenhouse: namely, the air temperature and relative humidity. Different
forms of PSO and DE algorithms are considered and applied in order to select the one that achieves the
set of parameters with the lowest evaluation error. The comparison of the selected algorithms is carried
out in an offline optimization schedule using real data recorded through the LabViewTM SignalExpress
application, and a real-time implementation in a LabViewTM code, implemented to optimize the model in
a sample to sample execution. The proposed model, with its corresponding computed parameters, is val-
idated comparing its results against the real dynamic behavior of the temperature and relative humidity,
that are measured directly from the greenhouse prototype, showing a good agreement between real and
estimated values. Several tests were executed in order to find PSO and DE best calibration conditions.
Experimental results allow us to propose an efficient way to deal with numerical optimization problems
of high complexity, applying a two stages scheme based on a first offline pre-identification, where the
obtained results are used as initial condition for an online, real-time refinement process.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction ural weather and presence of animals is ensured. The addition of

A greenhouse usually consists of a structure, build in metal in
most cases, coated with a transparent material which provides the
property to convert the building into a closed room, for the contain-
ment of a growing area for plants. The main purpose of a greenhouse
is the climate adaptation at the interior of the closed structure,
aiming to produce the ideal conditions for the growth and devel-
opment of specific crops, providing independence of the external
environment while a level of isolation and protection against nat-
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: aperez@gdl.cinvestav.mx (A. Pérez-González),
obegovi@gdl.cinvestav.mx (O. Begovich-Mendoza), jruiz@gdl.cinvestav.mx
(J. Ruiz-León).
URL: http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx (A. Pérez-González).
these features is in order to obtain a constant improvement in vol-
ume and quality for the crop production.
Regarding the greenhouse operation, an adequate mathematical
model that describes the dynamic behavior of the system is often
required for the purpose of control and manipulation of the climate
variables, mainly when automatic control strategies are considered
to be applied. Obtaining such model is a task of high complexity
that depends on the intrinsic physical characteristics of the case of
study.
Generally speaking, it is common to think of two types of mod-
eling methodologies in order to describe the dynamic behavior
of a greenhouse prototype [3]. The first one is called Black-box
Based Modeling, which is a technique that attempts to approx-
imate the behavior of a greenhouse using data mining analysis
or input/output measurements taken directly from the process.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2017.10.023
1568-4946/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
This is a useful technique applicable in several ways, like ARMAX
type algorithms, polynomial adjustments, training of artificial neu-
ral networks [4], fuzzy logic implementations [5], etc. However,
this kind of technique has the disadvantage that its results are
only numerical, without a physical correspondence. The second
methodology is known as modeling based on acknowledgement,
which implies an a priori specialized knowledge of the dynam-
ics and properties of the system. This technique seeks to model
the implied dynamics using differential equations, where the
involved parameters acquire a physical meaning, unlike the Black-
box approach. It should be noted that obtaining such models is a
very complicated task, due to the physical characteristics of the sys-
tem, for instance, the presence of strong nonlinearities, stochastic
behavior and dynamic delays [6]. Therefore, the models reported in
the literature usually take into account only the essential variables
to regulate, in general, the temperature and humidity inside the
prototype [7–9], trying to simplify the resulting representation.
An important problem appearing in acknowledgement mod-
els is the involvement of a large number of unknown parameters,
which requires a complicated process of instrumentation and
experimentation in order to find their appropriate values. Never-
theless, there exists an increasing number of proposals to handle
this situation, based on numeric algorithms which try to avoid
experimental issues, as for instance: subspace methods [10], linear
regressions [1], auto-regressive models [11], etc. Also, the use of
heuristic algorithms as a new methodology to solve the high com-
plexity problem of finding the parameters for acknowledgement
models has recently been proven to be an effective solution. In par-
ticular, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm has been
tested as a simple and effective methodology to deal with the opti-
mization of complex functions with a large group of parameters, as
shown, for instance, in [12–17].
The aim of this work is to apply, compare and validate the
efficiency of a variety of heuristic techniques, to be more spe-
cific, variations of both, the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm
(PSO) and Differential Evolution algorithm (DE), in the task of
obtaining an estimation of the parameters of a proposed green-
house model [12], and its adaptation to a real study case. Parametric
estimation of greenhouse models using heuristics has also been
considered in [12,14,16,17], as works closely related to the research
of this paper. Particularly, in [12] the authors present a model that
takes into account the temperature and the water vapor pressure,
but in practice and due to instrumentation requirements, it is very
complicated to measure the water vapor pressure. Instead of that,
an adaptation to that model is applied in the present work, in order
to use the temperature and relative humidity dynamics, as it has
been proposed originally in [17] with good results. In a similar way,
in [14] the authors present a model that considers the temperature
and relative humidity dynamics, but they only present an offline
optimization method with a considerable approximation error. In
[16] the authors introduce the use of an Extended Kalman Filter
and a neuronal network in the application of a PSO algorithm, but
they only considered the internal greenhouse temperature. Finally,
in [17] the authors present a full methodology based on heuristic
methods for the parameter search of a greenhouse mathematical
model, but a comparison between a collection of algorithms is not
addressed.
The main contribution of this work, compared with the above
mentioned references, is the application and comparison of a vari-
ety of PSO and DE algorithms to estimate the parameters of a
proposed mathematical greenhouse model, and the validation of
the results on a real greenhouse, with the intention of estab-
lishing a schedule of optimization of high performance. Results
obtained in both, the offline and online scenarios, allow to propose
a new methodology based on a pre-identification stage, followed
by an online sample-to-sample search process that maintains the
87
correspondence of the model estimations against the real mea-
surements, in each actualization point. The experimentation with
a variety of algorithms is in order to have a complete picture of
the performance of each one, aiming to select the one with the
best characteristics for each stage of the methodology. We also
present a comparative study of different approaches reported in the
literature related to greenhouse modeling and the corresponding
parameter identification, in order to establish the main differences
between these methods and the proposed methodology, highlight-
ing the results obtained in this work.
Measurements of climatic variables were acquired using
LabViewTM , and the temperature and relative humidity inside the
greenhouse prototype are considered as main system dynamics,
unlike [12,16], where the relative humidity is not considered. In this
research, a different form of PSO than the one used in [12,14,16] is
implement in order to obtain better results. This PSO form incor-
porates the use of a convergence factor and a stability criterion.
In a similar way, we show that by using good calibration param-
eters in the algorithms, we can avoid the use of a complicated
meta-structure based on the Kalman Filter in order to improve the
heuristic search. As far as the programming language selection is
concerned, it is worth mentioning that LabViewTM has proven its
efficiency in an enormous variety of fields, as it has been exposed,
for instance, in [18,19], where the authors present environments
for the visualization and data management of green energy sys-
tems with high levels of instrumentation. We can also add that
LabViewTM is a highly understandable programming language due
to its graphical interface, and it is equipped with several tools
similar to pre-programmed macros that makes the design of appli-
cations much easier. In addition, the philosophy of modular code
construction of LabViewTM allows to design and diagnose the code
in an easier way. Also, LabViewTM is the natural programming lan-
guage for the device used in this research as controller and data
logger, a CompactRIO, which is an equipment with its own real-
time OS, a feature that can be exploited in order to reduce the
non-deterministic execution time for computational tasks, called
jitter.
The structure of this paper is the following: Section 2 presents
the description of the greenhouse prototype. Section 3 introduces
the selected mathematical model and the set of considerations to
adapt it to the case of study of this research. Section 4 describes
the identification problem. Section 5 presents the forms of PSO
and DE algorithms that will be applied and compared. Section
6 shows the implementation of the algorithms, with the respec-
tive results for every case, taking into account offline and online
versions. Section 6 also presents some comments about different
methods in the related state of the art, in order to establish com-
parison points between these methods and the results obtained in
this work. Finally, we offer the relevant conclusions about all the
implementation.
2. Greenhouse prototype
The greenhouse prototype considered in this study is located
at CINVESTAV (Center for Research and Advanced Studies) in
Guadalajara, México (Global Position Coordinates at 20.668505,
−103.465039). At the moment of this research, the prototype was
in a stage where it does not have any kind of crop, considering the
recommendations of biological engineering experts, who suggest
that it is important to characterize first the thermodynamic behav-
ior of the greenhouse in an empty stage. The greenhouse prototype
has a floor area of 30 m2 and a maximal height of 5.14 m, as it is
shown in Fig. 1. It is also equipped with:
• Internal and external temperature sensors.
88 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the greenhouse prototype (all measures are in meters).
• Internal and external relative humidity sensors.
• Internal and external wind speed sensors.
• Internal and external CO2 concentration sensors.
• Internal solar radiation sensor.
• Two lateral windows, each one with a surface of 11.4 m2 and
equipped with an opening control system that uses an electric
engine of 100 W, 100 Nm with speed of 3.6 RPM, including an
E50S incremental optical encoder codified in X2.
• Two fans of 1/4 HP and 750 m3 /h each one.
• dt
UV2 plastic coat of 70% of solar permeability.
• Roof window with a surface of 4.34 m2 . Due to the lack of an
automation system for this window, it was always closed for all
the presented experiments and results.
• NI c-RIO-9074 as data acquisition equipment.
Considering all the sensors, the one which determines the sam-
pling conditions is the CO2 sensor, since it has the slower time of
actualization of all the sensors set. In fact, the CO2 sensors have
an actualization time of 1 s, after an initial transient state of 5 s,
in which the sensor reaches its operation point. Due to that, the
selected sampling time for all the experiments is taken as 1 s, in
order to avoid redundant data in the CO2 sensors case, considering
also that all the greenhouse dynamics are of slow behavior (except
for the wind speed). Then, although all the other sensors have
shorter actualization times, the dynamic behavior of their mea-
sured variables varies poorly in these intervals, so, 1 s as sampling
time allows to establish a good compromise between the informa-
tion provided by the measurements and the size of the conformed
data base. The wind speed is also conditioning to this sampling
time, since it really does not influence the model considerably.
3. Greenhouse model proposal
Greenhouse modeling techniques require approximations of
thermic and mass transferences. This can be represented by five
variables that, in general, describe the behavior of the greenhouse
prototype and its environment:
• X0 as the initial conditions vector,
• Y(t) as the set of observed/measured states,
• X(t) as the actual states vector,
• U(t) as the set of system inputs, and
• P as the vector of unknown system parameters.
Thus, the dynamic behavior of the system can be represented
by the equations
dX(t)
= f (X(t), U(t); P), X(0) = X0 (1)
Y (t) = g(X(t), U(t); P), (2)
where (1) is the state equation and (2) is the observation equation.
For the sake of readability of the next paragraphs, a glossary of the
variables and parameters of the greenhouse, including their units,
is presented at the end of this paper.
According to [12], in order to reduce the complexity of the
model, it is necessary to consider an empiric approximation based
on the system thermic components, like the soil and the heavy
structural parts, taking then the virtual thermic mass with temper-
ature Tm and calorific capacity Cm . Also, the air volume contained
at the interior of the prototype constitutes another representative
element of the thermic interactions inside the greenhouse. Thus,
we can characterize the air volume inside the prototype according
to its temperature Ti and the relative humidity percentage Hi . The
virtual thermic mass equation has the form
dT m
Cm = h(Ti − Tm ) + Qsol + ˇRg , (3)
dt
where h(Ti − Tm ) represents a thermic exchange between the air
and the virtual thermic mass, Qsol represents an artificial thermic
flow on the floor of the greenhouse, and finally, ˇRg represents a
gain due to the solar radiation incidence.
The thermic balance of the air inside the prototype, neglecting
the thermic inertia, obeys the expression
0 = ˛Rg + Qair + h(Tm − Ti ) + K(Te − Ti ) + Ks (Te − Ti )
+Kl (He P(Te ) − Hi P(Ti )), (4)
where ˛Rg is a thermic gain due to the solar radiation, Qair
is an artificial thermic input, h(Tm − Ti ) represents the thermic
 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100 89

exchange between the air and the virtual thermic mass, K(Te − Ti ) Table 1
Physical constants involved in the greenhouse model.
represents the thermic interaction between internal and exter-
nal air of the greenhouse prototype, and finally, Ks (Te − Ti ) and Greenhouse known parameters
Kl (He P(Te ) − Hi P(Ti )) are the sensitive and latent heat exchange due
Parameter Symbol Value
to ventilation and leakages, respectively.
Air thermic capacity Cp 1002.43
An adaptation to the model presented in [12] is proposed next,
Greenhouse volume v 122.52
where we introduce a relative humidity characterization instead of Sampling time t 1
the water vapor pressure dependency, in order to avoid the pres- Air density 1.297
sure instrumentation, which is more expensive and less available,
in comparison with relative humidity sensors; also, the environ-
ment specifications for crop development are generally expressed
where
in temperature and relative humidity. According to [20], the factor
H* P(T* ) represents a suitable approximation of the pressure gener- ⎡ ⎤T
1
ated by the presence of water vapor from the Clausius–Clapeyron
⎢ ˛h + ˇv ⎥ ⎡T ⎤
curve ⎢ h(K + Ks ) ⎥ e(k)

⎢ ⎥ ⎢ Rg(k) ⎥
P(T∗ ) = 6.11 × 10 T∗ +237.3 .
7.5T∗ ⎢ v ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
(5)
−t
⎢ ⎥
−t ⎢ h(K + Ks ) ⎥ ⎢ Qsol(k) ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥.
Therefore, the use of Eq. (5) allows to obtain an approximation Tm(k+1) = Tm(k) e  + (1 − e  )
⎢ 1 ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ (13)
⎢ (K + Ks ) ⎥ ⎢ Qair(k) ⎥
of the relative humidity dynamics, using as a basis the pressure
⎢ K ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
generated by the water vapor presence, as follows: ⎢ l ⎥ ⎣ He(k) P(Te(k) ) ⎦
⎢ (K + Ks ) ⎥
Pi = Hi P(Ti ), Pe = He P(Te ). (6) ⎣ ⎦ Hi(k) P(Ti(k)
−Kl
The balance of water vapor inside the prototype can be repre- (K + Kl )
sented by
dP i 4. Model identification
Cl = A Rg + B(P(Ti ) − Pi ) − Kl (Pi − Pe ) + ϕl , (7)
dt
dP For the estimation of the temperature for the virtual mass, the
where Cl dti represents the dynamic variation of the environmen- relative humidity and the temperature inside the greenhouse pro-
tal pressure at the interior of the greenhouse, A Rg is a linear
approximation of the crops transpiration due to the solar radiation, totype at time k + 1, the corresponding notation is T̂ m(k+1) , Ĥ i(k+1)
B(P(Ti ) − Pi ) represents the air saturation deficit due to the pres- and T̂ i(k+1) , respectively. Also, T̂ i(1) = Ti(1) and Ĥ i(1) = Hi(1) are taken
ence of water vapor, Kl (Pi − Pe ) is the ventilation exchange between as the initial conditions of the system, where Ti(k) and Hi(k) are the
the interior and the exterior of the greenhouse prototype, and ϕl internal temperature and relative humidity, respectively, measured
represents an artificial contribution of water vapor. directly from the prototype.
According to [12], by simultaneous integration of Eqs. (3) and According to [14], the parameters presented in Table 1 are suit-
(4), and considering Eq. (7) in terms of Eq. (6), a three equations able.
system is obtained, which includes three unknown values, Tm , Ti Due to the building stage of the prototype, the actuators terms
and Pi . This system is represented in a recursive form that depends Qsol(k) , Qair(k) and ϕl(k) are neglected in order to represent the lack
on the passed calculations, the set of inputs {Rg , T0 , V, P0 , P(Ti )}, of these instruments. Finally, the set of unknown parameters of the
the set of actuators {Qsol , Qair , ϕl , s}, and the model parameters that model is presented in Table 2, where it is also included the expected
need to be identified. physical bounds for each one.
Thus, the internal pressure dynamics is represented as follows:
⎡ ⎤
Rg(k)
 ⎢ ⎥
rSB  (k) SB S ⎢ He(k) P(Te(k) ) ⎥
Pi(k+1) = Hi(k) P(Ti(k) )e−(k) t + (1 − e−(k) t ) ⎢ ⎥ ,(8)
(k) (k) (k) (k) ⎢ P(T ) ⎥
⎣ i(k) ⎦
ϕl(k)
where
√ √
Al sV (k) C + Al s0 V(k) C + d0 + BS/ Cp
(k) = , (9)
v
√ √
(k) = Cp Al sV (k) C + Cp Al s0 V(k) C + Cp d0 + BS, (10) In order to apply a heuristic optimization algorithm, it is neces-
sary to propose a cost function whose values represent a numerical
and interpretation of the performance of the implemented method.
(k) = (k) − BS. (11) Considering the internal temperature and relative humidity as the
most representative climatic variables for the greenhouse proto-
In the same way, using (3) (4), (5) and (6), the temperature type, the following Mean Square Error (MSE) function is established
dynamics inside the greenhouse is expressed as follows: as the cost function:
⎡ Te(k)
⎤
1 
N
⎢ ⎥ 2 2

⎢ Rg(k)
⎥ J= [(T̂ i(k) − Ti(k) ) + (Ĥ i(k) − Hi(k) ) ], (14)
h v−h ˛ 1 Kl −Kl ⎢ ⎥ 2N

⎢ ⎥
Ti(k+1) = Tm(k+1) + b Qair(k) (12) k=1
v


⎢  ⎥
⎣ H e(k) P Te(k) ⎦
 where the arguments of this function are the estimations and mea-
H i(k) P Ti(k) surements of these representative variables.
90 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100

Table 2
Unknown parameters and their boundaries for model optimization.

Greenhouse unknown parameters

Parameter Symbol Lower bound Upper bound

Thermic mass initial temperature Tm(1) 0 50

Thermic exchange convection coefficient h 0.5 40
Coefficient of absorption of solar radiation due to air ˛ 0.2 100
Characteristic time  1 2000
Coefficient of absorption of solar radiation due to mass ˇ 0 50
Transpiration coefficient B 1 100
Windows natural ventilation factor Al 0 100
Natural ventilation factor due to air convection C 0 5000
Leakage surface s0 0 1000
Leakage factor d0 0 200
Thermal loss coefficient K 0.001 5000
Latent heat transfer coefficient Kl 0.0001 200
Sensible heat transfer coefficient Ks 0.0001 2000
Mix ratio r 0 1000
Exchange surface between components S 0 122
Psychrometric constant  0 100
Coating transitivity coefficient  0 1000

5. PSO and DE algorithms
Heuristic methods are considered as a useful tool to solve a great
variety of optimization problems, mainly where the process of find-
ing an analytic solution represents a big effort or an enormous
consumption of time. Thus, this kind of algorithms are a suitable
method to be applied when the problem to be solved admits a
lack of exactitude in its final result, but time saving or less effort is
required in the calculations.
5.1. PSO selected forms
(PSO), as one of the most well-known heuristic algorithms, has
been proven in an extensive field of applications as an effective
method to obtain a suitable solution for optimization problems.
It is also a common source of inspiration for the creation of more
complex hybrid methods, as we can see, for instance, in Please, omit
the [20–22]. PSO presents a series of characteristics that makes it
the first choice in the algorithm selection for this research:
• PSO has a real valued representation, which allows to avoid the
conversion to binary field and backwards, common in many
heuristic algorithms.
• The set of operations that compose the PSO algorithm is based on
arithmetic, and it is of easy understanding.
• PSO presents a swarm behavior, which is an adequate approach
in search spaces of considerable extension, due to the capability
of exploration in steps of different length and the communication
between particles, which share the information of the best found
results.
• PSO is well known, thus, there exists a lot of publications about
it, and many variations have already been proposed, in order
to tackle problems of considerable complexity. Besides, there
already exists references about PSO calibration and stability.
PSO is a heuristic computational algorithm based on group
search behavior that allows to optimize the solution of a problem
through a set of candidate solutions [21]. PSO assumes a few issues
or no assumptions at all about the problem to be optimized, and it
can be applied in large search spaces, as mentioned above. Still, it
is impossible to guarantee an optimum solution in all cases.
The PSO algorithm will be briefly described next: take f (a) :
Rn → R as a real valued cost function required to be minimized,
where a represents a candidate solution taken as a vector of n real
numbers. The output of the function f(.) is also a real number that
measures the performance of its argument. Thus, the best position
of each particle as a candidate solution corresponds to the mini-
mum value of the function f(.), now seen as the objective function.
The aim of the evaluation process is to find a candidate solution ˛
such that f(˛) ≤ f(a) for all a in the search space, which implies that
˛ is the argument that minimizes the objective function globally.
Let PRN be the total number of particles in the swarm (candidate
solutions), each one provided with a position PRi ∈ Rn in the search
space, and a speed VPRi ∈ Rn ; and let Pbest i ∈ Rn be the memory
of the best position known for the ith particle, and let Gbest ∈ Rn
be the memory of the best global position known (between all
particles). Then:
For each particle PRi , i = 1, . . ., PRN:
• The position of each particle is initialized by a random uniform
distribution PRi ∼ U(LB, UB), where LB and UB represent the lower
bound and the upper bound, respectively, of the search space.
• The best known position of each particle is initialized using the
position obtained in the previous step, Pbesti ←− PRi ; also, the
global best known position is initialized with the value of a random
member of the set of particles Gbest ←− PRrandI[1,PRN] .
• If f(PRi ) < f(Gbest), then the global best known position is updated
by Gbest ←− PRi .
• The velocity for each particle is initialized using a random uniform
distribution VPRi ∼ U(−|UB − LB|, |UB − LB|).
After the above steps, the algorithm becomes iterative, and it
will be necessary to establish a stop criterion, generally given by
a maximum number of iterations. Then, while the stop criterion is
not reached, it is necessary to repeat, for each particle PRi , i = 1, . . .,
PRN, the velocity update, the position update and the evaluation
process.
In the current literature there exists a large number of pro-
posals for PSO variations. For this work, 3 representative forms
were selected. The first one, the so-called Classical PSO, has a speed
update equation as follows [21,22]:
VPRi,d ←− ωVPRi,d + ϕp rp (Pbest i,d − PRi,d ) + ϕg rg (Gbest d − PRi,d ).
(15)
The second PSO implemented is the form named Many Optimiz-
ing Liaisons PSO (MOLPSO) [23,24], proposed as a simplification of
 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
the original algorithm. It eliminates the self-conscience of each par-
ticle, suppressing the memory of the best known position Pbesti . Its
speed update equation takes the form:
VPRi,d ←− ωVPRi,d + ϕg rg (Gbest d − PRi,d ). (16)
The last selected variation is the so-called Increased Convergence
Factor PSO (ICFPSO); it is a Classical PSO with the addition of a com-
pression factor Cs , taken as the convergence factor. In practice, it is
proven that ICFPSO has a greater convergence speed than the regu-
lar PSO form [22,25]. The equation for the speed update for ICFPSO
has the form:
VPRi,d ←− Cs (ωVPRi,d + ϕp rp (Pbest i,d − PRi,d ) + ϕg rg (Gbest d − PRi,d )).
(17)
For all the presented PSO variations, d = 1, . . ., n represents the
index of the dth element of each n-dimensional particle PRi ; ω rep-
resents the particle inertia, which modulates the influence of the
past speed of each element of the particle in the latest update; ϕp is
the local attractor, also called cognitive factor, which modulates the
search capability of new areas; and ϕg is the global attractor or social
factor, which controls the fine-search capability of the algorithm in
the neighborhood of the global best known position. The factors rp
and rg are uniformly distributed random gains for the local and the
global attractors, respectively, selected in the interval [0, 1].
According to [22,25], the next expressions are considered for a
good performance and stability of ICFPSO:
ϕp + ϕg = ϕ > 4, (18)
and
2
Cs =  . (19)
|2 − ϕ − ϕ2 − 4ϕ|
After performing the speed update, the next step is to update
the particle position using the expression
PRi ←− PRi + VPRi . (20)
To finalize each iteration, if f(PRi ) < f(Pbesti ), the best known posi-
tion of the ith particle is updated by Pbesti ←− PRi , and, in the same
way, if f(PRi ) < f(Gbest), the global best known position is updated
by Gbest ←− Pbesti . When the stop criterion is reached, Gbest is
presented as the best solution found. Notice that the evaluation
function f(.) corresponds, in our case of study, to Eq. (14).
It is important to point out that the Classical PSO is the first
implemented algorithm of this research, allowing the selection
of MOLPSO as a comparison between the well known PSO and a
simpler form; the selection of ICFPSO is in order to compare the
influence of the calibration process presented by Clerc and Kennedy
[25] in the obtained results.
5.2. DE selected forms
Differential Evolution (DE) represents the second choice for this
research. As the PSO algorithm, DE has been proven as a good per-
formance method in the approximation of solutions for problems of
high complexity. The characteristics that makes it a suitable option
are enlisted below:Replace D̈Ifferential Evolution (DE)ẅith only D̈E¨,
please.
• Like PSO, DE needs no conversion schedule for the representation
of the population. It allows to track the problem directly in Rn .
• DE is considered as a greedy search algorithm. This marks a differ-
ence between PSO and DE, and allows to check if swarm behavior
91
has or not better performance than greedy search in problems like
the one presented in this research.
• DE is composed by arithmetic operations that allow to create
easy representations of the set of candidate solutions, and easy
interactions between these candidate solutions.
• DE only needs two calibration factors, and the definition interval
for these factors is considerably small. This defines DE as an easy
calibration algorithm.
DE algorithm, like PSO, is a computational algorithm based on
the manipulation of a population of candidate solutions, applicable
for complex search problems [26]. It presents a series of interactions
between the candidate solutions to produce new individuals, and
such new members are tested and catalogued by a cost function,
seeking for the survival of only the ones with the best performance.
The main characteristic of the DE algorithm over other evolutive
methods, is the use of trial vectors of real values, as mentioned
before.
Let PR be a set of vectors, where the ith member is denoted by
PRi . Besides, PRi ∈ Rn , thus, the dimension of each vector, n, equals
the number of parameters that are needed to be identified. PR is a
finite set, formed for all the PRi ∈ PR, i = 1, . . ., PRN.
g
Thus, PRi,m is an element, or gene of a member of the population,
such that i represents the individual index inside the population, m
represents the index for each gene of a vector PRi , with m = 1, . . ., n,
and g is the generation to which the individual belongs, that is, an
element with g = x + 1 is the direct product of the genetic interac-
tions of members with g = x. Also, let LBm and UBm be the minimum
and maximum bounds, respectively, for all the genes with index m.
The initial population, g = 1, is generated by the expression
PR1i,m = LBm + re (UBm − LBm ), (21)
where re takes values from a random uniform distribution re ∼ U(0,
1). After the initialization, a recursive mutation process is per-
formed over the population, and it is the beginning of each iteration
during the DE algorithm execution. The form of the mutation is the
part of the method that defines the DE algorithm variation. The
mutation expressions are presented later on.
The mutation process generates a set of mutant individuals,
g
VPRi , i = 1, . . ., PRN, then, a recombination stage is executed, using
the expression
 g
VPRi,m if rv < Cr or m = IrandI[1,n]
g
Ui,m = (22)
g
PRi,m otherwise,
g
where Ui is the trial vector, and it will be the argument of the cost
function during the evaluation step; Cr , known as recombination
crossover, directly modulates the form of the combination between
g
the genes of the original member PRi and the ones from VPRi ;
g
IrandI[1,n] is a random positive integer, whose condition guarantees
g g
Ui = / PRi as long as there exists genetic diversity in the population;
and rv takes values from a random uniform distribution rv ∼U(0, 1).
Each iteration finishes in the evaluation stage, where the popu-
lation is restructured using the expression
 g g g
Ui if f (Ui ) < f (PRi )
g+1
PRi = (23)
g
PRi otherwise,
where, as in the PSO algorithm, f(.) is given by Eq. (14). The stop
criterion also uses an iteration number goal.
An elitism criterion is added to each iteration by the expression
 g g
Ui if f (Ui ) < f (Gbest)
Gbest = (24)
Gbest otherwise,
92 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
where Gbest is presented as the best solution found at the end of
the execution.
Recalling the mutation stage, the first selected form for this
research is the so-called DE rand/1 [27] as the most common form
of DE mutation. It uses a single random combination of elements
from the original population to generate each mutant, as expressed
in the following equation:
g g g g
VPRi = PRr1 + F(PRr2 − PRr3 ),
where r1 = / r2 = / r3 are random integers uniformly distributed in
the interval [1, PRN].
The second choice of mutation method is the one known as DE
current to best/1 [28], because it uses a distance between the mem-
ber that is indexed at the moment of mutation and the element
of best performance in the whole population at the g generation,
and it also includes a random combination of elements, like in the
previous case. The expression for this mutation form corresponds
to
g g g g g
VPRi = PRi + F(Gbest − PRi ) + F(PRr1 − PRr2 ),
where r1 = / r2 are random integers uniformly distributed in the
interval [1, PRN]. For both mutation cases, F represents the mutation
factor, and it is a real constant to be fixed in the interval (0, 2), which
regulates the algorithm capability of exploration (values near to 2)
and exploitation (values near to 0).
DE rand/1, like Classical PSO, is selected as the most common
form of DE algorithms, allowing DE current-to-best/1 to be imple-
mented to check the influence of social interaction in a greedy search
algorithm.
6. Application and results
For the computational implementation, the deployed equip-
®
ment is an Intel CoreTM i7-2600 K, with a 3.4 GHz processor and
15.7 GB in RAM, DDR3 833 MHz type; the OS of the computer
is WindowsTM 8 professional edition, and the machine is also
equipped with an operative LabViewTM 2012 version software.
The acquisition and control system is a NI-CompactRIO 9074 with
a Freescale MPC5200 industrial processor of 400 Mhz, real time
®
Windows River VxWorks OS; and a reconfigurable FPGA XilinxTM
Spartan III with 2,000,000 of logic gates.
The experimental schedule consists, as the first step, on an
offline test of the described algorithms. Using the LabViewTM Sig-
nalExpress toolkit, a data base of climatic conditions of 24 h length
is recorded, starting on November 20, 2013, at 2:45 p.m. The data
acquisition has a sampling time of 1 s, and is captured with the pro-
totype windows closed and fans turned off. Fig. 2 shows the data
base.
6.1. PSO implementation
The first tested algorithm, the Classical PSO, is implemented in
3 stages, each one with different calibrations parameters. Exper-
imentally, it is possible to observe that the Classical PSO form
presents a behavior of premature convergence for any calibration
parameters. That is, PSO rapidly admits a local minimum as the
best solution found. This behavior can be minimized changing the
calibration parameters at the moment of premature convergence.
Thus, the result of the first stage is taken as the initial condition
for the second stage, and, in the same way, the result of the sec-
ond stage is taken as the initial condition for the third stage, every
time, adjusting the calibration parameters. For this research, after
the third calibration step, there is not a fourth calibration that can
improve the obtained results. Calibration parameters, execution
times and results are shown in Table 3, where, the MSE acronym
refers to Mean Square Error between the temperature and relative
humidity measurements and their respective estimates.
Fig. 3 shows the graphical results for the internal temperature
and relative humidity estimations using the parameters found in
the last iteration of the Classical PSO.
The results for MOLPSO are shown in Table 4. For this algorithm,
calibration parameters were selected according to [29], where the
increment of the population number is taken as a technique to
(25) tackle problems with a high number of parameters to be identified,
at the same time that this increment also compensates the unde-
sirable effects of the suppression of the self-conscience of MOLPSO.
Also, it is important to point out that MOLPSO does not present a
fast premature convergence behavior, that is, it does not require a
schedule of multiple steps to recalibrate the algorithm.
Fig. 4 shows the graphical results for the internal temperature
and relative humidity estimations with the model that includes
the parameters obtained by MOLPSO, the improvement is notable
in the MSE presented in Table 4 and in the graphic representation,
in comparison with the Classical PSO results.
(26) For the last PSO form, the ICFPSO, the parameters were selected
with an experimental criterion based on the best results obtained
from several executions, considering the Eqs. (18) and (19). As in
the MOLPSO implementation, ICFPSO does not present the fast pre-
mature convergence behavior. In fact, it was not possible to improve
the obtained results reached after 1800 iterations for none of the
PSO forms presented in this paper, neither adding a recalibration
step, nor increasing the size of the population or performing more
iterations. Results for ICFPSO are presented in Table 5.
Fig. 5 shows the behavior of the model with the values obtained
from ICFPSO as parameters, comparing the estimations of the
internal temperature and relative humidity with their respective
measurements.
Experimental results show a significant reduction of the MSE
between the Classical PSO and the ICFPSO (7.1214 units), while, for
the MOLPSO there exists a small MSE difference in comparison with
ICFPSO (0.426 units). The execution time is almost the same for all
the algorithms. Referring to the execution time of each particle, the
less expensive form is obviously the MOLPSO, which represents the
99.80% of the time consumption of the other two algorithms; but,
due to the calibration parameters suggested in [29], the MOLPSO
population is 28 particles bigger than the other variations, thus,
it takes more time in total execution. Besides, the obtained results
clearly show that the PSO form with the best performance is the ICF-
PSO, therefore, it will be taken to compete against the DE algorithm
of best performance.
6.2. DE implementation
Proceeding in the same way as in the PSO algorithms, the cli-
matic data base shown in Fig. 2 is taken as test data for the proposed
DE variations. For the DE rand/1, Table 6 shows the results. Calibra-
tion parameters were selected based on the best results obtained
after several experimentation scenarios, where it is important to
point out that, neither bigger populations nor extended iteration
goals improve the obtained results. Also, DE algorithms do not
require recalibration steps throughout their execution, due to their
capability of reaching excellent results without fast convergence
behavior.
Recalling the results of the ICFPSO, it is evident that DE rand/1
has a higher MSE result, but the execution time for this DE algorithm
is less than 12% of the ICFPSO execution time. Of course, this is due to
the low population volume requirement for the DE algorithm. The
behavior of the mathematical model that includes as parameters
the values that were found by DE rand/1 and its comparison against
the temperature and relative humidity measurements are shown
in Fig. 6.
 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100 93

Fig. 2. Data base for November 20, 2013, starting at 2:45 p.m.

Fig. 3. Measurements and estimations for Classical PSO.

The last proposed algorithm, the DE current to best/1, is imple-
mented in the same conditions that the other ones, and the obtained
results are shown in Table 7. Calibration parameters, like in the
other algorithms, were selected experimentally, based on the best
results obtained after several tests.
Graphical results for the DE current to best/1 are shown in Fig. 7.
At this point, it is possible to present a brief discussion about the
results and comparisons of the proposed algorithms. First, the exe-
cution time for the DE forms is considerable less than for the PSO
forms, due to the low population density requirement, as previ-
ously mentioned. At particle level, DE algorithms have an execution
time that represents, for rand/1 form, 107.56% of the execution time
of each ICFPSO particle, and for the current to best/1 form, the cor-
respondence is 108.86%. However, the DE forms are less expensive
in general terms, and also the DE current to best/1 form has the
best performance of all the executed algorithms, with a MSE value
of 1.3721 units less than the result of the PSO form with the best
performance.
About the number of iterations, it was selected considering the
best case of execution for each kind of algorithm, after several
94 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100

Table 3
Implementation of Classical PSO.

Calibration parameters Execution time Results

First stage
ω = 0.341 Execution time for each particle = 1.534 s Tm(1) = 19.8168; K = 498.2187;
ϕp = 2 Execution time for each iteration = 306.8 s h = 11.5137; Kl = 0.7423;
ϕg = 4 Total execution time = 25 h34 m ˛ = 0.2720; Ks = 50.2080;
 = 210.8597; r = 1.2497;
PRN = 200 ˇ = 0.1388; S = 17.4738;
itermax = 300 B = 4.0917;  = 10.6474;
Al = 4.2710;   = 0.3976.
C = 1.9601;
s0 = 0.4909; MSE = 118.5424
d0 = 1.0171;

Second stage
ω = 1.302 Execution time for each particle = 1.534 s Tm(1) = 36.834; K = 749.1368;
ϕp = 2 Execution time for each iteration = 306.8 s h = 0.254; Kl = 0.0008;
ϕg = 2.6 Total execution time = 85 h13 m20 s ˛ = 0.4167; Ks = 1.7701;
 = 77.4686; r = 8.11;
PRN = 200 ˇ = 1.5678; S = 0.0277;
itermax = 1000 B = 2.10967;  = 1.9146;
Al = 9.38;   = 17.6603.
C = 181.8587;
s0 = 0.8131; MSE = 38.1441
d0 = 0.4898;

Third stage
ω = 0.748 Execution time for each particle = 1.534 s Tm(1) = 43.3350; K = 533.0516;
ϕp = 2 Execution time for each iteration = 306.8 s h = 0.7201; Kl = 1.431;
ϕg = 2.3 Total execution time = 42 h36 m40 s ˛ = 0.4105; Ks = 14.4136;
 = 48.0071; r = 5.3423;
PRN = 200 ˇ = 0.2213; S = 0.3052;
itermax = 500 B = 1.4097;  = 5.0511;
Al = 5.9094;   = 10.9406.
C = 66.7576;
s0 = 7.4737; MSE = 17.9975
d0 = 1.5762;

Total iterations: 1800 Execution time for all stages: 153 h24 m

Table 4
Implementation of MOLPSO.

Calibration parameters Execution time Results

ω =−0.3747 Execution time for each particle = 1.531 s Tm(1) = 49.4233; K = 61.3820;
ϕg = 4.2373 Execution time for each iteration = 344.96 s h = 24.7059; Kl = 0.1108;
Total execution time = 172 h28 m55 s ˛ = 0.3822; Ks = 73.4544;
PRN = 228  = 970.0159; r = 0.8627;
itermax = 1800 ˇ = 4.3994; S = 2.5027;
B = 1.0279;  = 0.3293;
Al = 9.8001;   = 6.2293.
C = 22.2470;
s0 = 99.6807; MSE = 11.3021
d0 = 0.0614;

Fig. 4. Measurements and estimations for MOLPSO.

 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100 95

Table 5
Implementation of ICFPSO.

Calibration parameters Execution time Results

ω = 0.87 Execution time for each particle = 1.534 s Tm(1) = 45.7231; K = 72.5843;
ϕp = 2 Execution time for each iteration = 306.8 s h = 22.5012; Kl = 0.0502;
ϕg = 2.54 Total execution time = 152 h24 m ˛ = 0.7342; Ks = 70.2445;
Cs = 0.4871  = 992.121; r = 0.9146;
ˇ = 4.1218; S = 2.0144;
PRN = 200 B = 1;  = 0.3373;
itermax = 1800 Al = 10.0139;   = 6.2175.
C = 27.6392;
s0 = 100.0231; MSE = 10.8761
d0 = 0.0426;

Fig. 5. Measurements and estimations for ICFPSO.

Table 6
Implementation of DE rand/1.

Calibration parameters Execution time Results

F = 0.8 Execution time for initial evaluation = 49.8 s Tm(1) = 49.9945; K = 44.1889;
Cr = 0.5 Execution time for each particle = 1.65 s h = 36.0319; Kl = 0.0491;
Execution time for each iteration = 49.5 s ˛ = 0.3944; Ks = 81.0269;
PRN = 30 Total execution time = 17 h53 m19.8 s  = 880.7339; r = 15.6669;
itermax = 1300 ˇ = 4.2109; S = 65.2484;
B = 1.8529;  = 9.5230;
Al = 89.4319;   = 17.1960.
C = 38.7875;
s0 = 92.5775; MSE = 10.8806
d0 = 0.3740;

Fig. 6. Measurements and estimations for DE rand/1.

96 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
Table 7
Implementation of DE current to best/1.
Calibration parameters Execution time
F = 1, 2 Execution time for initial evaluation = 49.8 s
Cr = 0.6 Execution time for each particle = 1.67 s
Execution time for each iteration = 50.1 s
PRN = 30 Total execution time = 18 h06 m19.8 s
itermax = 1300
Fig. 7. Measurements and estimations for DE current to best/1.
experiments. For the PSO with the best performance, the ICFPSO,
the best result takes almost 1800 iterations in order to reach the
convergence of all the particles to a single value, after that, no
improvement can be obtained. The exact value of iterations was
1784, so, we rounded out that number to 1800 and used it in all
the PSO forms. In fact, the Classical PSO reaches the premature
convergence much sooner than that value, around 1600 iterations,
without an improvement of the estimated solution. In the same
way, MOLPSO reaches the consensus of all its particles near 1750
iterations. The DE algorithms case is similar: DE current to best/1
reaches the consensus of all its population in exactly 1298 iter-
ations, while DE rand/1 does the same near 1200 iterations. We
used a fixed number of iterations per kind of algorithm in order
to compare the execution time. Also, it is important to point out
that after several experiments, neither increasing the number of
particles/individuals nor augmenting the number of iterations per
algorithm achieve better results. Taking into account the above
results, the best representative algorithms, ICFPSO and DE current
to best/1, are reprogrammed in order to construct an online version
of each one. The next subsection presents the results for the online
optimization schedule.
6.3. Online implementation
The previous subsections show the results of the selected PSO
and DE algorithms, executed in an offline stage, where the evalu-
ation process occurs in each particle in each iteration using all the
samples of the data base presented in Fig. 2. The obtained results
place as the algorithms with the best performance, in first instance,
the DE current to best/1, followed by the ICFPSO. In this section,
those algorithms are re-evaluated in an online scheme through a
real-time execution obtained by using the properties of LabViewTM
RT and the CompactRIO programming tools. The execution scheme
Results
Tm(1) = 48.9387; K = 137.4996;
h = 23.2731; Kl = 0.3015;
˛ = 1.8341; Ks = 92.5755;
 = 1064.6769; r = 213.3789;
ˇ = 7.0721; S = 15.107;
B = 2.9434;  = 0.0454;
Al = 6.886;   = 126.641.
C = 0.3478;
s0 = 6.6954; MSE = 9.5040
d0 = 32.1055;
needs a few changes: in first place, the measurement of climatic
signals needs to be performed directly by LabViewTM . The eval-
uation scheme for particles also needs to be restructured, and in
order to guarantee the real-time execution, it is necessary to ensure
that the execution time of each algorithm is less than the sampling
time. Selecting the same sampling time as 1 s, the evaluation of the
algorithms takes 0.524 s for the ICFPSO with 100 particles per sam-
ple, and 0.1711 s for the DE current to best/1 with 30 particles per
sample. A total execution time of 0.6951 s is suitable for a period
between samples of 1 s, and with the minimum jitter characteristic
of a CRIO system, the implementation is guaranteed to be in real-
time. Due to the new updating scheme (sample to sample) a new
evaluation function is proposed as
2 2
1
J(k) = [(T̂ i(k) − Ti(k) ) + (Ĥ i(k) − Hi(k) ) ]. (27)
2
The algorithms are implemented in a 72 h lapse, starting on April
7, 2014, at 12:45 p.m. In order to prove the adaptation capability of
the optimized model, the experimental conditions were changed:
the fans were turned on and the windows kept full open during all
the execution. Fig. 8 shows the climatic data measured during this
new experiment.
As a final adaptation, calibration parameters from the respective
offline version are used, with the addition of an initial condition for
both algorithms, which generates the first set of particles in a neigh-
borhood of ±10% from each term of the best solution found in the
offline stage. Figs. 9 and 10 show the results for online ICFPSO and
online DE current to best/1, respectively, after the 72 h of execution.
Adding a code line with an accumulator of the approximation
error, experimentation delivers a total MSE of 5.64 units for ICFPSO,
a great performance improvement in comparison with the offline
version, and 9.4237 units for DE current to best/1, which represents
a non-significant improvement of the solution. It is recalled that for
 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100 97

Fig. 8. Climate behavior during the online ICFPSO and DE current to best/1 execution.

Fig. 9. Online ICFPSO graphic results.

the offline scenario, the DE algorithm shows a better performance out that parameters found by the online algorithms were omitted
in parameter identification, as well as in execution time, but in an from this paper, due to the variations presented in consequence of
online scenario the PSO shows a better adaptation capability, even the sample to sample update scheme.
with a drastically reduced population. Also, it is important to point
98 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100
Fig. 10. Online DE current to best/1 graphic results.
Experimental results allow to define completely the identifi-
cation scheme of better performance: first, a pre-identification
stage using DE current-to-best/1 algorithm, which has an execu-
tion time of 18 h, 6 min and 19.8 s for a database of 24 h; then, the
obtained results are taken as initial conditions of an online refine-
ment scheme based on ICFPSO, with a time consumption of 52.4%
of the time between samples, using a sampling time of 1 s.
Finally, Table 8 presents a summary of several approaches avail-
able in the current literature related to greenhouse modeling and
its parameter identification, including comments for each one, that
allow to establish comparison points between them and the pro-
posed methodology, including of course the results obtained in this
paper.
7. Conclusions
In this paper, a generic mathematical model for a greenhouse
has been taken from the literature, adapting it to the physical
conditions of a real prototype, and then its parameters were iden-
tified in order to improve the correspondence of that model to the
dynamic behavior of the prototype. The identification process has
been divided in two stages, first, testing a set of PSO and DE algo-
rithms whose properties are given by its calibration parameters,
and second, introducing the optimization scheme in a real-time
execution using LabViewTM . The related code was validated in the
real prototype, using also real data records as online measurements.
The comparison of the behavior of the optimized model and the
real system through the MSE calculus provides a practical criterion
to select the best performance algorithm to optimize a problem
of this complexity, wherever appropriate calibration parameters
are selected. Also, the sample to sample adaptation of the selected
algorithms increases the already good behavior of the computa-
tional methods, allowing the optimization to be faster and better
in the online form than the offline one. It is important to emphasize
that, based on the obtained results, we propose a methodology to
deal with a greenhouse identification problem based on the selec-
tion of a mathematical representation, and afterwards performing
an offline pre-identification using the DE current to best/1 algo-
rithm due to its low time consumption, and finally, performing an
online identification stage using the ICFPSO, owing to its adaptation
capability in a sample to sample execution. Estimation results are
superior in this work than in other papers reported in the literature,
where the online stage additionally grants the model a time variant
parameter identification property. Furthermore, a control strategy
based on the availability of those parameters can be implemented
as a sample to sample adaptive algorithm.
As future work, the proposed methodology will be proven again
in the final building stage of the greenhouse prototype and in pres-
ence of crops, in offline and online mode, while the optimized
model will be used to design control actions to manipulate the
greenhouse internal temperature and relative humidity. Also, it is
intended to implement the methodology in other greenhouses, in
order to prove its adaptation capability.
Acknowledgments
We sincerely thank to CONACyT for the economic incentives
provided during this investigation, to CINVESTAV for the provided
resources for the greenhouse prototype construction and instru-
mentation, and to the researchers involved in the development of
this project.
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 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100 99

Table 8
Comparison of the offline-online heuristic scheme against different methods.

Approach Comments

Acknowledgement model with physical adaptation [8] This approach only considers the temperature inside a greenhouse prototype. It
reports a maximum deviation on the model adaptation of 7.09 ◦ C and an average
deviation of 1.21 ◦ C. Our approach reaches a maximum deviation for the temperature
of 2.47 ◦ C and an average deviation of 1.87 × 10−3 ◦ C.
Subspace methods [10] It includes the estimation of foliage temperature, omitted in this work due to the
building stage of the prototype. This reference reports a combined MSE for
temperature and relative humidity of 6.49 units, 0.85 units above the result of our
paper.
Means of auto-regressive models [11] It presents only the estimation of temperature for a greenhouse, but includes a
complete seasonal analysis of the adaptation of the proposed model. The parameter
identification only has regressive value without a physical interpretation. The model
presents falls on the goodness of fit below 70% due to the season change. This issue can
be corrected with the online sample-to-sample schedule proposed in our work.
PSO and GAs approach [12] It only reports the temperature estimation, with a MSE for PSO of 0.1280 units, and for
GA of 0.1341 units, but considering only 161 samples. In the experiments of our work,
the MSE seems to be bigger, but it is important to highlight that the total number of
samples is 518400. The graphical comparison of the behavior of the model estimations
shows a better fit in our research.
Classical PSO [14] It presents the estimations for temperature and relative humidity, but reports high
displacements between the estimations and measurements when the real prototype
begins to lose thermal energy (at sunset). These displacements are impossible to be
compensated by the selected PSO in [14].
PSO and GAs approach [15] This work is the predecessor of [12]; it only presents the temperature estimations, but
includes a PSO form with variations in the inertia value. The number of estimated
parameters is only 4, against 17 that are estimated in our work. It does not present an
online scheme. The best results present a maximum displacement of temperature
estimation higher than 5 ◦ C, against 2.47 ◦ C as the maximum deviation presented in
our work.
Online PSO approach [17] This work introduces the use of the online heuristic algorithm. It omits the use of
another kind of heuristics, and because of that, the computational time for the
pre-identification stage is considerable bigger than the best performance reached in
our work.
Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms [30] This research introduces the Pareto analysis in the objective function, and implements
an identification of 15 different physical parameters, reporting an excellent result with
0.845 ◦ C and 2.564% of displacement between the measurements and the estimations.
Nevertheless, the model identification shows an important displacement in the
relative humidity estimations at the moment of saturation, with differences of almost
10%. As in [11], this issue can be corrected by the use of an online scheme.
Robust identification using evolutionary algorithms [31] The ε − GA algorithm, which characterizes the Feasible Parameter Set by means of a
discrete set of models that are well distributed, is presented as the methodology of
solution. Multi-model optimization confers to this research a high level of robustness,
but, in the same way as its predecessor [30], the approach presents high
displacements in the humidity saturation area.
Extreme learning approach [32] It presents a set of algorithms used as the training group for neural networks, and
introduces the wireless instrumentation. The model implementation is based on
Black-box approach, and presents an average fit on the prediction between 97% and
82% against 93% of fit as the worst value reached in our work. A value of 3.1305 units
of combined MSE are presented as the best result reached in [32], which seems to be a
better result. Calculation of MSE is lower due to the low number of samples
implemented.
Least squares estimation [33] This paper presents both, identification and control for a greenhouse prototype. The
combined MSE obtained using the LSE is 0.09201 units for 14400 samples, also, the
method omits the physical meaning of parameters. Graphical results are more
representative and allow to note high displacements between estimations and
measures in the extreme values of temperature and relative humidity.
Means of neural networks [34] A NNARX system is proposed as model identifier in this paper, and it only considers the
estimations of temperature. Graphical results show a good match between estimations
and measurements, and the goodness of fit is reported with values above 75%.
Nevertheless, the method omits a physical interpretation for the identification results.
Discrete events characterization [35] This research introduces a simplification for the acknowledgement model, presenting
it as a decomposition based on a set of simpler submodels. In graphical results, it is
possible to observe that submodel transitions produce a high-noise estimation
behavior.
Fuzzy clustering approach [36] This work presents a decomposition on linear models for a greenhouse representation.
The results reach a high performance estimating the temperature and relative
humidity, but physical meaning of the estimated parameters is omitted. The graphical
results show presence of disturbances in few points of the evolution of the
experiment, which presents displacements above 8 ◦ C and 15% for temperature and
relative humidity, respectively.
ART2 classifier [37] It presents a decomposition using local models obtained with an Elman Neural
Network technique from a greenhouse data base, and also introduces a supervisory
controller based on neural approach. The work is centered in the controller results,
presenting few statements about the model identification. Nevertheless, graphical
results allow to observe big displacements in temperature and relative humidity
estimations.
100 A. Pérez-González et al. / Applied Soft Computing 62 (2018) 86–100

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r: mix ratio
S: exchange surface between components (m2 )
s: windows opening surface (m2 )
s0 : leakage surface (m2 )
T* : air temperature (◦ C)
Tm : thermic mass temperature (◦ C)
V: wind speed (m/s)
v: greenhouse volume (m3 )
˛: coefficient of absorption of solar radiation due to air
ˇ: coefficient of absorption of solar radiation due to mass
: psychometric constant (hPa/K)
t: sampling time (s)
, , : system mediation coefficients
: air density (kg/m3 )
: characteristic time (s)
  : coating transitivity coefficient
ϕi : humidification system power (W/m2 )
ϕl : cooling system power (W/m2 )
*i : internal dynamic
*e : external dynamic
Alfonso Pérez González graduated from University of
Guadalajara with the engineer in electronics and com-
munications degree in 2012. Academic Excellence Award
from the National Association of Faculties and Schools of
Engineering in 2012. M.Sc. degree obtained in the Center
for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) Campus
Guadalajara in the field of electric engineering in 2014.
Academic studies alternated with industrial experience
since 2010 in various companies in areas of electronic
diagnosis and repair, automation, programming, fault
analysis, and electromechanical R + D. Currently conduct-
ing doctoral studies at CINVESTAV Campus Guadalajara in
the field of metaheuristic optimization.
Ofelia Begovich Mendoza was born in México City, Méx-
ico. She obtained the M.Sc. in electrical engineering from
CINVESTAV, México City, in 1987, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of Rennes
I, Rennes, France in 1992. Since 1992, she is a professor
of electrical engineering of graduate program in CINVES-
TAV, Guadalajara, México. Her major research field is the
control of processes, leak diagnosis, control and monitor-
ing of greenhouses and heuristic optimization applied to
parameter estimation.
Javier Ruiz León received the M.Sc. degree from CINVES-
TAV, México, in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree from the Czech
Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic, in 1996.
He is currently working at CINVESTAV Campus Guadala-
jara, México. His research interests include linear system
theory and hybrid systems.

Glossary

A: saturation gain due to transpiration (g/m3 )

Al : windows natural ventilation factor
B: transpiration coefficient (W/m2 hPa)
C: natural ventilation factor due to air convection
Cl : water steam thermic capacity (1/kg K)
Cm : heavy components thermic capacity (1/kg K)
Cp : air thermic capacity (1/kg K)
d0 : leakage factor (m3 /s)
H* : relative humidity (%)
h: thermic exchange convection coefficient (W/m2 K)
K: thermal loss coefficient (W/m2 K)
Kl : latent heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 hPa)
Ks : sensible heat transfer coefficient (W/m2 hPa)
P* : pressure (hPa)
P(T* ): saturation pressure (hPa)
Qair : air thermic charge (W/m2 )
Qsol : soil thermic charge (W/m2 )
Rg : solar radiation (W/m2 )