Nutrient Sensing, Monitoring, and Control for Hydroponic Crop Production in Smart Greenhouses

Hydroponic crop production in smart greenhouses requires accurate nutrient monitoring and reliable control, especially in recirculating systems. This review critically examines sensing principles, data acquisition, control strategies, actuation, feedback, and system integration. Electrical conductivity (EC) and pH are widely used for dosing, but EC cannot quantify individual nutrient concentrations. Emerging technologies include ion-selective electrodes, solid contact and field effect sensors, optical spectroscopy, multi-sensor arrays, and Internet of Things platforms. Their deployment remains constrained by interference, drift, fouling, reference instability, calibration demands, and matrix effects. Control approaches range from threshold-based dosing and EC/pH feedback to proportional–integral–derivative, rule-based, ion-specific, and model-based strategies. Published ion-specific replenishment and hybrid EC–ion studies demonstrate feasibility under tested conditions. However, differences in nutrient formulations, study duration, and error definitions limit conclusions about commercial control accuracy. This review proposes an integrated framework linking sensing, decision making, actuation, and verification, with performance assessed at analytical, temporal, operational, and system/control levels. Future research should prioritize reliable multi-ion sensing, automated data quality checks, delivered dose verification, safe operation during faults, and communication between components. Validation should include complete crop cycles, maintenance, fault recovery, and independent sites. These requirements support evaluation of nutrient use efficiency, operational reliability, and scalability across crops and hydroponic systems under realistic production conditions.