Design of anti-frost smoke machine system for mountain orchard based on multi-objective optimization

Cold spell in late spring often occur during the flowering period of fruit trees, causing irreversible damage to flower buds and significant economic losses to apple orchards. To address this challenge, we propose an optimized frost protection system based on the Hippo Optimization Algorithm (HOA) and the k-minimum spanning tree (k-MST) model. A green solar frost protection scheme is first developed. Then, the number and location of smoke machines are optimized using HOA. The wiring layout is further optimized using the k-MST model based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP), where the number of deployment points derived by HOA is used as the input parameter k. Simulation results show that compared with traditional methods, this optimization approach can achieve a maximum reduction of 55.55% in the number of smoke machines, and an even more significant saving of up to 44.16% in wiring length. The optimization method provides a cost-effective strategy for agricultural frost protection.