Synchronization analysis of the supermarket refrigeration system

The supermarket refrigeration system typically has a distributed control structure, which neglects interactions between its subsystems. These interactions occasionally lead to a synchronous operation of the display-cases, which increases both energy consumption and deterioration of components. This is by all mean to be avoided. The paper focuses on synchronization dynamics of the refrigeration system modeled as a piecewise-affine switched system. Stability analysis is performed by gluing the subsystems together to create a single dynamical system. The system behavior is analyzed using the bifurcation and chaos theory. It is demonstrated that the system can have a complex chaotic behavior, which is far from the synchronization. This shows that making the system chaotic is a good choice for a desynchronization strategy. The positive maximum Lyapunov exponent is usually taken as an indication of the existence of chaos. It is used in this paper as a measure of performance for the tendency of the system to synchronize, that is, the higher value of the maximum Lyapunov exponent the lower risk for synchronization.