  Although model-based fault tolerant control (FTC) has become prevalent in
various engineering fields, its application to air-conditioning systems is
limited due to the lack of control-oriented models to characterize the phase
change of refrigerant in the vapor compression cycle. The emergence of moving
boundary method (MBM) illuminates a promising way for FTC design. In this
paper, we exploit a control-oriented nonlinear model comparable to MBM to
design an FTC framework with a generalized internal model control (GIMC)
approach. A fault detector and isolator (FDI) is developed to identify
potential actuator and sensor faults. A fault compensator is employed to
compensate these faults if detected. Comprehensive simulations are carried out
to evaluate the developed FTC framework with promising results. Plant
variations are explicitly considered to enhance the gain-scheduled FTC
developments.
