Identification and control of temperature in a zero energy cool chamber for fruits and vegetables

Abstract

A new storage system called “zero energy cool chamber (ZECC)” has been developed to increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables from the viewpoints of low-cost and energy saving. The inside temperature is cooled only by evaporation of water, without using electricity. The solar radiation increases the outside air temperature of the ZECC and this increased temperature help evaporating moisture from the wet sand layer of the ZECC. When water removed from the sand layer, inside temperature of the ZECC decreased. The dynamic behavior of the inside temperature is usually characterized by complexity and uncertainty. A three-layer neural network with time-delay operators was used to identify the dynamic change in the inside temperature of the ZECC, as affected by the air temperature and watering. It allows predicting the dynamic response of the inside temperature in the future with a high accuracy.