Multimodal Data Integration for Sustainable Indoor Gardening: Tracking Anyplant with Time Series Foundation Model

Abstract: Indoor gardening within sustainable buildings offers a transformative solution to urban food security and environmental sustainability. By 2030, urban farming, including Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and vertical farming, is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2% from 2024 to 2030, according to market reports. This growth is fueled by advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, sustainable innovations such as smart growing systems, and the rising interest in green interior design. This paper presents a novel framework that integrates computer vision, ML, and environmental sensing for the automated monitoring of plant health and growth. Unlike previous approaches, this framework combines RGB imagery, plant phenotyping data, and environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, to predict plant water stress in a controlled growth environment. The system utilizes high-resolution cameras to extract phenotypic features, such as RGB, plant area, height, and width while employing the Lag-Llama time series model to analyze and predict water stress. Experimental results demonstrate that integrating RGB, size ratios, and environmental data significantly enhances predictive accuracy, with the Fine-tuned model achieving the lowest errors (MSE = 0.420777, MAE = 0.595428) and reduced uncertainty. These findings highlight the potential of multimodal data and intelligent systems to automate plant care, optimize resource consumption, and align indoor gardening with sustainable building management practices, paving the way for resilient, green urban spaces.