Project Description

The global movement of goods relies greatly on trucks. Some goods need not just to be transported from A to B but must be kept within a specific temperature range. For example, food and pharmaceutical industries face financial losses of millions of dollars a year by violating such limits. It is estimated that 700 million tons of food waste yearly result from poor temperature conditions during transport.

Project Goal

This project aimed to keep better track of given temperature limits to inhibit or at least strongly diminish waste of goods and to increase overall efficiency simultaneously. This was achieved by applying a sophisticated model-based control strategy defining how the cooling unit inside of a refrigerated truck should be operated. Comprehensive experimental investigations confirmed the theoretical advantages of the proposed algorithm demonstrated in simulations.

Electric vehicle, which has a measuring device for cooling in the cargo space

Video Presentation

Interested in more information?

Watch our project video on this exciting topic!

After activation, data may be transmitted to third parties. Data protection declaration., opens in new window

Video Title: DiNaMiC - Distributed Model Predictive Control for Modular Cooling Units

Distributed MPC Modular Cooling Units

Publications

Fallmann, Markus, Agnes Poks, and Martin Kozek. "Hybrid model-based online estimation of air temperature in mobile small-scale cooling chambers, opens an external URL in a new window." Applied Thermal Engineering 208 (2022): 118147.

Poks, Agnes, Elisabeth Luchini, Markus Fallmann, Camillo Signor, Andreas Wurzinger, Dominik Radler, Stefan Jakubek, and Martin Kozek. "Distributed hierarchical control for multiple refrigeration units, opens an external URL in a new window." Thermal Science and Engineering Progress (2022): 101319.

Fallmann, M., A. Poks, and M. Kozek, "Model Predictive Control for Refrigeration Systems: Challenges and Approaches, opens an external URL in a new window", E-Nova Burgenland (2021)

Luchini, Elisabeth, Agnes Poks, Dominik Radler, and Martin Kozek. "Model predictive temperature control for a food transporter with door-openings, opens an external URL in a new window" In 2020 SICE International Symposium on Control Systems (SICE ISCS), pp. 85-91. IEEE, 2020.

Cooperation Partner

Duration

  • February 2019 - January 2022

More Projects

Contact

Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Martin Kozek

Send email to Martin Kozek