A Low Cost Robust Architecture with High Connectivity for the Control of Refrigeration Chambers

Computer-based control of refrigeration chambers must be fault tolerant because of their critical mission. Poor or no response in case of wrong operation of the system may result in the loss of the products. Achieving fault tolerance involves all elements in the control system, including microcontrollers and the interconnection network. This work presents a practical architecture for distributed control of refrigeration chambers with fault tolerance and low cost as main characteristics. The proposed architecture has been implemented and tested in the laboratory using fault injection. The system has also been implemented in actual facilities for conservation and maturation of citric fruits, showing its high robustness.