A machine learning bayesian network for refrigerant charge faults of variable refrigerant flow air conditioning system

An intelligent fault diagnosis network for variable refrigerant flow air conditioning system is proposed in this study. The network is developed under the foundation of bayesian belief network theory, which comprises two main elements: the structure and parameters. The structure obtained by machine learning and experts' experiences illustrates the relationships among faults and physical variables from the qualitative prospective, and its parameters (including prior probability distribution and conditional distribution) describe the uncertainty between them quantitatively. Once the structure and parameters are determined, the posterior probability distribution which can be used to complete fault diagnosis and isolation will be calculated by some algorithms. In comparison with other fault diagnosis approaches, the proposed approach can make full use of performance information. Moreover, it is more reasonable and precise to express the relationship between faults and variables rather than Boolean variables. Evaluation was conducted on a variable refrigerant flow air conditioning system, which demonstrated that this strategy is effective and efficient. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.