Comparison of control strategies for the temperature control of a refrigeration system based on vapor compression

Abstract: This paper presents the design of multivariable temperature control for a refrigeration system based on vapor compression employing the internal model control technique. The refrigeration system is based on the PID18 benchmark, which is a $2\times 2$ MIMO system. The controlled output variables of the refrigeration system are the cooling power managed through the outlet temperature of the evaporator and the superheating degree at the condenser. The input variables of the system are the valve opening and the compressor speed. System identification is performed by applying stepped signals to the input variables, resulting in four transfer functions estimated with a Box-Jenkins model. From the MIMO system transfer functions, the relative gain array is calculated to determinate the best variables to be paired. After that, according to the variables to be paired, the corresponding transfer functions are reduced to order two to design a PID controller for each output variable employing the internal model control technique. Then, the controllers are contrasted employing a set of quantitative performance indexes with the control results achieved in the PID18 workshop. Obtained results show that the proposed Internal Model controllers have better performance than most of the proposed controllers at the PID18.