1. Introduction
It is well known that performance degradation resulting from
the development of faults within vapor compression systems
can result in significant increases in energy consumption
(McIntosh et al., 2000). Since cooling and refrigeration
compromise over a third of the electrical energy consumption
in residential and commercial buildings, the development of
diagnostic modules that can effectively detect incipient faults
could result in significant cost and energy savings that would
have a dramatic economic and environmental impact.