System for monitoring expansion valve
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A process for monitoring the operation of an expansion valve within at least one refrigeration circuit of a heating or cooling system comprising the steps of:
- reading values of information produced by a plurality of sensors located within the heating or cooling system;
processing a set of data consisting of at least some of the read values of information produced by the plurality of sensors through a neural network so as to produce a computed valve position for the expansion valve within the refrigeration circuit of the heating or cooling system;
comparing the computed valve position with a commanded valve position for the expansion valve within the refrigeration circuit of the heating or cooling system; and
selectively transmitting a message as to the operation of the expansion valve based upon the comparison of the computed valve position with the commanded valve position.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A monitoring system for a heating or cooling system includes a neural network for computing the status of one or more expansion valves within the system. The neural network is trained to learn certain characteristics of the heating or cooling system during a development mode of operation. The thus trained neural network timely computes the status of the one or more expansion valves during a run time mode of operation. Information as to the status of the one or more expansion valves is made available for real time assessment during the run time mode of operation.
35 Citations
33 Claims
-
1. A process for monitoring the operation of an expansion valve within at least one refrigeration circuit of a heating or cooling system comprising the steps of:
-
reading values of information produced by a plurality of sensors located within the heating or cooling system; processing a set of data consisting of at least some of the read values of information produced by the plurality of sensors through a neural network so as to produce a computed valve position for the expansion valve within the refrigeration circuit of the heating or cooling system; comparing the computed valve position with a commanded valve position for the expansion valve within the refrigeration circuit of the heating or cooling system; and selectively transmitting a message as to the operation of the expansion valve based upon the comparison of the computed valve position with the commanded valve position. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
-
-
14. A process for learning the characteristics of a heating or cooling system so as to predict the status of an expansion valve in at least one refrigeration circuit of the heating or cooling system, said process comprising the steps of:
-
storing a plurality of sets of data obtained from information read from sensors within the heating or cooling system when the system is subjected to various load and ambient conditions for known statuses of the expansion valve; and repetitively processing a number of the stored sets of data through a neural network so as to teach the neural network to accurately predict the known statuses of the expansion valve for the particular sets of data whereby the neural network may be thereafter used to compute the status of the expansion valve from a set of data obtained from information read from sensors within the heating system. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
-
-
25. A process for monitoring the operation of at least one expansion valve within a refrigeration circuit of a heating or cooling system comprising the steps of:
-
reading a commanded status for the expansion valve within the refrigeration circuit; reading information from a plurality of sensors located within the heating or cooling system when reading the commanded status of the expansion valve; deriving a set of data to be applied to a neural network from the information read from the plurality of sensors located within the heating or cooling system; processing the set of data through a neural network so as to produce a computed value as to the operative status of the expansion valve; and comparing the computed value as to the operative status of the expansion valve with the read commanded status of the expansion valve; and selectively transmitting messages as to the operation of the expansion valve when the computed value as to the operative status of each expansion valve is not equal to the commanded status of the expansion valve. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
Specification