ANAHEIM, Calif.,
Oct. 1, 2009 – A
newly chartered California company – ClimateMinder, Inc. – offers
farmers and greenhouse growers flexible new remote monitoring and control
systems that help yield higher quality agricultural products, efficiency and
energy savings by integrating digital sensors, software and wireless-networking
technology.
ClimateMinder’s
remote-environmental-monitoring system is delivered wirelessly in the field or greenhouse
through an array of sensors, nodes and mobile data network components developed
in conjunction with technology leaders Intel and Ericsson. Key data about monitored conditions are
transmitted over wireless data networks to growers’ mobile phones, PDAs or
computers, avoiding the need for wiring their fields or greenhouses.
ClimateMinder is being
demonstrated this weekend at the Produce Marketing Association’s “Fresh Summit”
International Convention & Exposition at the Anaheim Convention Center.
“ClimateMinder puts
growers in control of the environmental and climate variables that affect the
ultimate success of their production,” said company CEO Bulut Ersavas. “By monitoring and controlling to
measured conditions, ClimateMinder can quickly alert growers to conditions that
threaten their crops, such as extremes in temperature or moisture, and the need
to take corrective action.
“Our system helps
growers optimize growth patterns, increase their productivity and product
quality, shorten time-to-market, save water and reduce cost for nutrients and
pest control,” said Ersavas, who added that greenhouse operators using the technology
to grow tomatoes in Turkey since 2007 achieved increased productivity by
reducing energy and labor costs and saving time.
Closer to home,
California agricultural solutions company GreenArch, Inc., is managing
deployment of ClimateMinder systems in 80 acres of southern California strawberry
fields in association with Norcal Harvesting, according to GreenArch production
manager Mike Almasri. The
goal: Optimizing the growing
environment by measuring the amount of water and salt in the soil.
ClimateMinder is based
on machine-to-machine (M2M) mobile mesh network technology that enables sensors
deployed in open farm fields or greenhouses to identify and recognize each
other on the network automatically, thus simplifying setup, installation,
configuration and monitoring for growers.
Sensors integrated by ClimateMinder measure key climatic conditions and
parameters in the growing environment, including temperature, humidity,
nutrients and others.
At the heart of the system
is ClimateMinder’s patent-pending, GrowFlex™ technology, which consists of two elements
-- a self-organizing, battery- or solar-powered sensor network in the field or
greenhouse, and a wireless data connection to a cellular data network.
GrowFlex provides
growers maximum flexibility. Unlike
systems that require major field infrastructure, ClimateMinder does not require
a PC or wiring in field or greenhouse facilities. A suite of environment sensors is available and has been
certified for ClimateMinder.
The ClimateMinder system
is designed to complement either low-tech or high-tech control systems
installed in fields or greenhouses so that it can help growers control
microclimates, provide supplemental controls for local conditions or
growing practices and can be used for either food or ornamental crops.
The ClimateMinder
concept was founded in the United States under the name Kodalfa and has proved successful
for hundreds of businesses in the greenhouse-tomato-grower market in
Turkey. Kodalfa recently returned to
the U.S. market and incorporated as ClimateMinder; the new company is headquartered
in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles-area
software-engineering firm Partners 1993 has taken a minority stake in the
company with investments in the form of cash and software-development services to
expand the system’s mobile components to other M2M and handset devices and to
integrate with key control systems in the U.S.
# # #
About ClimateMinder
ClimateMinder Inc. develops
complete wireless-sensor-network solutions for smart agriculture and food
industry applications. ClimateMinder’s inherently flexible software / hardware
integration techniques resolve commercialization issues of sensor networks by
optimizing efficiency and speeding up the development process. Large-scale distributed systems built
with small-size and low-cost sensors are powerful tools for sensing activities
and interacting with physical environment. Although sensor networks are very
powerful, they present challenges like energy efficiency, data transfer
reliability and scalability. ClimateMinder uses industry standards and its
cutting edge technology to build reliable, manageable and energy-efficient
sensor systems. It provides affordable, proven and dependable solutions by
employing open standards and architectures.
About Partners 1993
Partners 1993 Inc., based in the Los
Angeles suburb of Tujunga, Calif., is a software development and services
company focused on mobile applications.
It is a spinoff of the award-winning mobile product company,
WebMessenger Inc., which was acquired in 2008. Since 1993, the company has delivered custom mobile,
desktop, client/server, multimedia and scalable distributed web systems to both
startup and public companies in the United States and in Europe. To learn more, click on http://www.partners1993.com
.
