Classification of Household Appliance Operation Cycles: A Case-Study Approach

Abstract

Abstract:In recent years, a new generation of power grid system, referred to as the Smart Grid, with an aim of managing electricity demand in a sustainable, reliable, and economical manner has emerged. With greater knowledge of operational characteristics of individual appliances, necessary automation control strategies can be developed in the Smart Grid to operate appliances in an efficient manner. This paper provides a way of classifying different operational cycles of a household appliance by introducing an unsupervised learning algorithm called k-means clustering. An intrinsic method known as silhouette coefficient was used to measure the classification quality. An identification process is also discussed in this paper to help users identify the operation mode each types of operation cycle stands for. A case study using a typical household refrigerator is presented to validate the proposed method. Results show that the proposed the classification and identification method can partition and identify different operation cycles adequately. Classification of operation cycles for such appliances is beneficial for Smart Grid as it provides a clear and convincing understanding of the operation modes for effective power management.

Thermal Simulation of the Fresh Food Compartment in a Domestic Refrigerator

“…Additionally, these figures also exhibit the actual experimental tests and the reference position. In this case, the thermal variation at the reference (with the shelves located as shipped out of factory) is 2.4 ( • C) 2 , as it can be observed from the figures. Figure 9 shows the temperature variance simulation using Lagrange's interpolation.…”

“…An easy way to understand the diagram in Figure 4 is observing that each P i,j (x) represents a numeric value in a table, and the P is used to indicate polynomial. The figure only illustrates how these numeric values are computed by using Equation (2). The last value in the algorithm is the required interpolated value.…”

“…In these figures, the temperature variances is displayed using several colors. Specifically, a blue color represents the lowest variance-in this case 1 ( • C) 2 . The zones with highest variability are displayed in red-in this case 5 ( • C) 2 .…”

“…Specifically, a blue color represents the lowest variance-in this case 1 ( • C) 2 . The zones with highest variability are displayed in red-in this case 5 ( • C) 2 . Additionally, these figures also exhibit the actual experimental tests and the reference position.…”

“…The domestic refrigerator is one of the most used appliances worldwide and the majority of these refrigerators are based on the vapor compression technology; thus, in literature, several studies have focused on thermal improvements and energy strategies in the system operation [1,2]. On the other hand, it is known that the basic function of the refrigerator is storing fresh food and medicines, and this depends on the good performance of the refrigerator, which is closely linked to temperature distribution and air flow inside the compartments.…”