A review of fault detection and diagnosis methods for residential air conditioning systems

The fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) for air conditioning systems has been an active area of research for over two decades. However, the majority of methods have been developed for commercial buildings. While much of this work applies to the residential market, this market has unique challenges and opportunities that should be considered separate from the commercial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and industrial refrigeration systems. This paper reviews and evaluates state-of-the-art methods for performing FDD for air conditioning systems. In the field of applying these methods to the residential market, the opportunities for development include: (a) Considering the level of fault diagnosis that is most cost-effective in the residential market. (b) Simplifying the set of required sensors for FDD. This paper also reviews the emerging field of fault detection of residential air conditioning systems by using cloud-based thermostat data. Publishers have only recently started releasing large-scale analyses of thermostat data, but experts predict considerable growth in this field. •FDD provides many benefits throughout the air conditioning value chain.•Most air conditioning FDD methods are developed for packaged systems.•The majority of air conditioning FDD methods lack field validation.•Fault detection using thermostat data will be an area of growth in the near future.