I am Adnan Rasheed, a greenhouse technology researcher. For the past decade I have been building simulation models that predict how much energy a greenhouse needs — and then hunting for the design changes that cut that number: better thermal screens, heat pumps, solar reflectors, smarter control.
Senior Researcher, Smart Farm Space Agriculture Research Institute, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, South Korea. Previously postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, Canada. Alongside research, I work as a freelance energy-modelling consultant on agricultural buildings across North America — see consulting.
I trained as an agricultural engineer in Faisalabad, then went to Madrid for a master's in agro-engineering, where I first worked on cooling systems and wind-powered irrigation for greenhouses. That question — how do you keep a greenhouse in the right climate without burning through energy? — has followed me ever since.
I did my PhD in agricultural civil engineering at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, building and validating building-energy-simulation models of multi-span greenhouses. After that came years in Korea as a postdoctoral researcher and then research professor, and two years in Edmonton at the University of Alberta working on greenhouses for cold-climate cities — where the heating season is long and the daylight is short.
I am now a senior researcher in Jinju, Korea, working on smart farm and space agriculture. I like problems where a model, a sensor and a real greenhouse have to agree with each other. If that is your kind of problem too, please get in touch.
Each one started as a practical complaint from a grower and ended up as a model.
TRNSYS-based models of single- and multi-span greenhouses, calibrated against measured microclimate, used to test design options before anyone builds them.
Measuring heat transfer and long-wave radiative properties of energy-saving screens, and optimising screen configurations for maximum conservation.
Air-to-water heat pump models for heating and cooling protected horticulture, plus wind and solar options for irrigation and daylight.
Ventilation and set-point strategies, CFD airflow analysis of vertical farms, and machine-learning approaches to predicting and controlling the indoor climate.