Online Fault Detection Configuration on Equipment Side of a Variable-Air-Volume Air Handling Unit

With the development of the technology of the Internet of Things, more and more operational data can be collected from air conditioning systems. Unfortunately, the most of existing air conditioning controllers mainly provide controlling functions more than storing, processing or computing the measured data. This study develops an online fault detection configuration on the equipment side of air conditioning systems to realize these functions. Modbus communication is served to collect real-time operational data. The calculating programs are embedded to identify whether the measured signals exceed their limits or not, and to detect if sensor reading is frozen and other faults in relation to the operational performance are generated or not. The online fault detection configuration is tested on an actual variable-air-volume(VAV) air handling unit(AHU). The results show that the time ratio of fault detection exceeds 95.00%, which means that the configuration exhibits an acceptable fault detection effect.