Automated Aeration System

The Clifton family are crop and cattle farmers from NSW. They operate multiple farms across the Riverina, an agricultural region of South-Western NSW

The customer needed to control and monitor the humidity of their grain silos. One of the most critical factors in successful grain storage is the moisture content of the crop. Without aeration cooling of high moisture grain in storage, the temperature rapidly increases. High moisture content leads to storage problems because it encourages fungal and insect problems, respiration and germination. Due to the location of the silos and limited onsite presence, it was a necessity for the customer to have an automated system designed. It was imperative that the solution would provide them with the ability to remotely monitor and control the fans that are used to draw air in through the grain when in the silos.

VK Logic designed a cost-effective simple solution, which included integrating a PLC and touchscreen HMI with remote access via a mobile phone app. Not only was the system we implemented easy to operate and understand, it was designed with spare capacity to allow for easy future expansion.

Our involvement with the Clifton Family provided them with a stand-alone control system that can be accessed anywhere and anytime throughout Australia. The air humidity is constantly monitored to ensure the fans only operate when humidity is at an optimum level to ensure grain quality is premium. Our solution was compact and scalable, which made for ease of installation. We were delighted that we could provide the Clifton’s with an extremely cost effective solution, which was easy to use and future proofed their site.