International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE 2010), 11-13 May 2010, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Design and Implementation of a Fuzzy logic based
controller for refrigerating systems
M.Mahbubur Rashid
Dept of Mechatronics Engineering
International Islamic University Malaysia
Kuala lumpur, Malaysia
E-mail mahbub@iiu.edu.my
Abstract: This paper describes an intelligent the temperature
control at a desired level in a refrigerator. The control works
on the basis of modeling a thermostatic appliance and the
use of fuzzy logic. A refrigeration system control device
using fuzzy logic for controlling a plurality of refrigeration
compressors such that the closest capacity is selected to
match the load to each of a plurality of evaporators
comprising, a control having an input adapted to be
connected to a means to sense the temperature in the
controlled space wherein a control signal is indicative of the
maximum refrigeration load of the controlled space, a means
for determining whether the primary control variable in said
space is above or below a single predetermined desired
target. Thermostatically simulated and fuzzy controlled
model are presented successively. The latter is set-up on the
basis of the Mamdani’s type of fuzzy rules. MATLAB,
SIMULINK and Fuzzy Logic TOOLBOX (FLT) are the
programming environments used for realization of the
model. The principal aim in designing the control is to
assure the fastest and best transition possible from an
analogue to digital control of the refrigerating appliance,
which represents the basis of a functional expansion
demanded by the present market.
Keywords-Refrigeration; off-on compressor; controller
I. Introduction
Introduction: The vapor compression refrigeration plants,
though designed to satisfy the maximum load, work at part-
load for much of their life generally regulated by on/off cycles
of the compressor, working at the nominal frequency of 50 Hz,
imposed by a thermostatic control which determines high
energy consumption. Moreover, the inefficient use of
electricity to supply the refrigeration and air-conditioning
compressors is considered as an indirect contribution to the
greenhouse gases emitted in the atmosphere; these emissions
can be reduced by improving the energy conversion efficiency
[1]. A theoretical comparison of various refrigeration capacity
control methods in full and part-load conditions shows that the
compressor speed variation is the most efficient technique [2-
3]. This method of refrigeration capacity control, which
978-1-4244-6235-3/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
Ashraful Islam
Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
International Islamic University Malaysia
consists in varying the compressor speed to continuously
match the compressor refrigeration capacity to the load, has
been analyzed during the last years [4–9]. An inverter can be
used to regulate the compressor speed. There are different
types of electronic variable-speed drives, but the pulse width
modulated source inverter (PWM) is the most suitable for its
low cost and high efficiency.
So, the primary aim of this paper is to develop a controller
capable of controlling continuously the speed of a compressor.
This kind of control allows us to match the compressor
refrigeration capacity to the cooling load at any time, so that
the compressor can also work at other than system frequency
50 Hz. In particular, referring to a vapor compression
refrigeration plant subjected to a commercially available cold
store, a control algorithm based on the fuzzy logic, and able to
select the most suitable compressor speed in function of the
cold store air temperature,
Moreover, a fuzzy controller with respect to PID control
generally might allow obtaining performances comparable or
sometimes better in terms of precision of the set point
required. Besides referring to a fuzzy controller the overshoot
of the variables is small and the settling time fast as regards
the dynamic response during the sudden variations in the
cooling load; all this generally results in a robust control [10–
13]. So, experimental tests have been conducted to compare
the plant performances obtainable using as compressor
refrigeration capacity control systems, both the fuzzy
algorithm and the classical thermostat that determines on-off
cycles of the compressor that works at a frequency of 50 Hz.
II. Conventional temperature controller for refrigerator
The schematic diagram of the refrigerator and the cooling air
flow is shown in Figure. 1. In general, the refrigerator for
home is operated with indirect cooling method and separated
refrigerating and freezing compartment whose temperature is
maintained 3°C and -18°C respectively. Basically, Freon R12
and R13 are used for the coolant of the refrigerator, but
nowadays Freon R-134a which is non-CFC is broadly used
because of the environmental pollution. The compressed
coolant in the compressor which flows through the heat
dissipating pipe and the capillary tube is evaporated in the
evaporator and then flows back to the compressor through the
suction pipe. The evaporated coolant in the evaporator plays
the role of decreasing the evaporator temperature. The fan,
installed in front of the evaporator, ventilates the cooling air
and refrigerates the food in the refrigerator. The circulation of
the cooling air is done by the on-off control of the fan
according to the inner temperature of the refrigerator. Typical
temperature control method of the refrigerator is on-off control
of the compressor and the air blowing fan. The on-off
controller in the refrigerator compares the real inner
temperature with the desired temperature and feeds this error
signal to the control input of the switch block of the controller.
This conventional on-off control is easy to implement and the
control algorithm is simple but is difficult to adapt the
temperature variation due to the outer temperature change or
the volume change of the stored foods which results in
temperature perturbation and more energy consumption.
Above all, the worst thing to overcome in conventional control
of the refrigerator is manual adjust of the desired refrigerator's
temperature by user according to the above changes. So
instead of using on-off controller of compressor, frequency
based variable compressor is used. Complete block diagram of
experimental process is shown in Figure 2.
Figure. 1 Conventional compressor operation
III. CONTROLLER DESIGN
Fuzzy Logic Control: Fuzzy logic is a logical system, which
is an extension of multi-valued logic. Additionally, fuzzy logic
is almost synonymous with the theory of fuzzy sets, a theory
that relates to classes of objects without sharp boundaries in
which membership is a matter of degree. Fuzzy logic is all
about the relative importance of precision, i.e. how important
is to be exactly right when a rough answer will work. Fuzzy
inference systems have been successfully applied in fields
such as automatic control, data classification, decision
analysis, expert systems and computer vision. The successful
attempt of fuzzy logic control was done by Mamdani for a
boiler steam engine. Fuzzy logic is a convenient way to map
an input space to an output space, and it is a useful tool to act
as a nonlinear controller for the styrene system which will be
described in the next section.
IV. Fuzzy Controller Design for variable speed controller
In the fuzzy controller for the system as seen in Figure. 3, two
inputs variable used are the error and the change of error. The
former can be define as the difference between the set point,
Tsp and the reactor temperature T(t) at time, t as follows,
e(t) = Tsp – T(t) (1)
and the latter as the difference between the error at time, t and
the previous error, e(t-1),
ce (t) = e(t) – e(t-1) (2)
Fuzzy logic in the compressor speed control, the main goal of
this paper is to determine a fuzzy
controller capable of regulating the compressor electric motor
supply current frequency. In particular, the figure shows a
two-input one-output fuzzy controller. The input variables are
the temperature difference between the set point temperature
and the real temperature of the air in the refrigerator ΔT ; and
the derivative of this temperature difference with time
d ( ΔT )
; the fuzzy output variable is the f frequency of the
dt
supply current of the compressor electric motor. However, it is
to be considered that it is certainly convenient to control from
the energy saving point of view the compressor speed because
it works at lower frequencies, if compressor run at low
frequency for long time it will another problem. So it is
necessary to minimize the compressor operation at low
frequency. This problem is considered in proposed fuzzy
controller.
The fuzzy inference process involving the process of
formulating the mapping between the inputs, ΔT and
d ( ΔT )
to the output, f (frequency) is simulated using the
dt
Fuzzy Logic Toolbox in MATLAB. In this study, Mamdani’s
fuzzy inference method is used. In Mamdani’s inference, the
output membership function of f is also fuzzy sets.
The error and its derivative normally pass through two suitable
gains, Ke and Kce respectively before they are fed into the
fuzzy controller. The output signal of the controller is also
scaled by an output gain, KQ and is sent to the manipulated
variable. The main objective of these gains is to allow the use
of normalized of error and change of error signals in
normalized quantities. For the inputs and output in this case,
the gains are set to the unity for two reasons, simplicity and to
avoid distortion between the measured error and the values
represented in the membership function. On other instances,
these scaling gains can be independently used for fixed and
adaptive tuning.
 Valve

Set Temp Error temp

Refrigerator
Refrigerator Cooling
Management

V
Controller Freezer

Set Temp Variable

Error temp capacity
Freezer Compressor

Figure. 2 Refrigeration process (Experimental layout).

For error, ∆T: λe ∈ [ Le , Ce , U e ]

(∆T)` For change of error, ∆T/dt: λce ∈ [ Lce , Cce , U ce ]
Signal Fuzzy-controller
Set (3)
conditioning
value T ∆T For output, f λQ ∈ [ LQ , CQ , U Q ]
Drive Circuit
Where the variable Li and Ui are the limit of the space of the
triangular function and Ci is the center peak of the triangular
Compressor function. The values of Li, Ci, and Ui of the membership
functions are as indicated in Table 1.
Refrigerator Table 1 Linguistic variables

Figure. 3 Controller for refrigerator λ Linguistic Meaning

N negative Negative
difference
Fuzzification is one of the inference processes that transfer the Z zero No difference
crisp input variables to corresponding fuzzy variables. For P positive Positive
each input and output fuzzy variables, three linguistics difference
variables are defined linguistically using the linguistic
variable. In several simulation studies, five memberships
function was tried in which they represented by five linguistic
variables i.e. Negative High (NH), Negative Low (NL), Zero 1 N Z P
D e g re e o f m e m b e rs h ip

(Z), Positive Low (PL) and Positive High (PH). In the study,
0.8
it was found that only three membership functions were fired
during the control application. The graphical representation 0.6
of the inputs and the outputs membership function are given 0.4
as in Fig 3 to 5. 0.2
0
These membership functions are confined within their -10 -5 0 5 10
respective space depending on the working range. The Error, e
triangular form is used to represent the membership function.
Figure 4: Input membership function, Error (∆T)

Figure 5: Input membership function, rate of Change of
Error
Figure 6: Output membership function, f
For this FL controller with two inputs and three linguistic
variables for each input, there is a maximum of 9 decision
rules as shown in Table 2. The formulation of the control
rules is crucial in determining the performance of the
controller. Every entity in the table represents a rule relating
two inputs and one output. In other words, having two
antecedents can enhance the robustness of the controller.
Table 2 Fuzzy rules for the controller
Error,(∆T)
N Z P compressor”. Proceedings Purdue, 1974
N Z Z P
Change of Z N Z P
error,(∆T/dt)
P N Z Z
In this work AND operator is used as logical operator. After
decision is made by combining the triggered rules, then the
output of each rules are combined into a single fuzzy set. This
is called aggregation. Only one output of the aggregation
process is assigned for each output variable. The fuzzy set is
the input for defuzzification to yield a crisp (numerical) value.
The numerical value is the final output to be sent to the
manipulated variable f .
V. Result
Number of experimental tests has been conducted to show
the energy saving possibility with the fuzzy based controller
for vapor refrigeration system. In these experimental tests
different type foods have been adopted as cooling load and
periodic opening of the refrigerator door and also due to the
inevitable heat exchanges with outdoor air when the
refrigerator door is closed. In Figure. 7 a comparison in terms
of electric energy efficiency, measured by means of a proper
electric energy meter one can clearly observe that the energy
consumption increases when the refrigerator air temperature
decreases
VI. Conclusion
This study reveals that the evaporative condenser can be
modeled using Fuzzy logic controller in efficient way, the
latter yielding somewhat superior predictions. In near future,
with the use of these techniques, the performance of
evaporative condensers can be enhanced by performing some
modification with conventional method, thus saving electric
energy and cost.
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 90

80

70

60 Off-On compressor
Efficiency (% )

Variable frequency based compressor

50

40

30

20

10

0
400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400
Speed (RPM)

Figure.7 Refrigerator Efficiency comparisons at different compressor speed.

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