JP2012017865A - Refrigerator - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem with a refrigerator having an automatic door opening and closing device, wherein if an auxiliary mechanism for opening and closing a door is provided to each of a plurality of refrigerator doors, the increased count of switching elements for operation, or sensor elements is caused, and man-hours and cost related to attachment and wiring therefor are increased.SOLUTION: The refrigerator includes an operation detector 22 for detecting surface vibration (acoustic pulse waves) of a door member produced by contact with a refrigerator door 17 and identifying an occurrence position of the acoustic pulse waves, and an opener for operating the refrigerator door 17 according to a detection result of the operation detector 22, and by using a door surface of the refrigerator as an operation switch for output of acoustic pulse waves by artificial operation, the refrigerator which is simple, low-cost, and highly practical can be achieved.

Description

  The present invention relates to a refrigerator having a plurality of doors, and more particularly, to a refrigerator that assists opening and closing of a door by an artificial operation.

  In recent years, refrigerators for home use have been increasing in capacity and increasing the number of cooling rooms in accordance with the lifestyles of users. Along with this, the physical load applied when opening and closing the doors of the cooling chambers that have become larger tends to increase. For this reason, the refrigerator which provides the opening / closing assist function of the door in a user and reduces load is proposed.

  Conventionally, as this kind of refrigerator, for the purpose of reducing the initial load when opening the door, there is a refrigerator that drives the door opening device to push out the door when the door opening switch is pressed (for example, Patent Document 1). reference).

  FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing a conventional refrigerator described in Patent Document 1. As shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 5, the refrigerator 51 includes a refrigerator main body 2 having a plurality of storage rooms, and a door 53, a door 54, a door 55, and a door 56 that close the front surface of the refrigerator main body 2.

  The door 53 is a rotary door pivotally supported at one end, and a handle 57 is provided. The doors 54, 55, and 56 are sliding doors, and are provided with a handle 58, which can be pulled out to the front.

  In addition, a door opening device 59 is provided on the top surface of the refrigerator main body 52 and is disposed behind the door 53. As an operation switch of the door opening device 59, a photo switch 60 is provided on a side surface of the door 53, a handle 57 and a handle 58, and a push switch 61 is provided at a substantially central lower portion of the door 53. Furthermore, a foot switch 62 is connected to the refrigerator main body 52 for remote operation.

  About the refrigerator comprised as mentioned above, the operation | movement is demonstrated below.

  First, when the door 53 is to be opened, when the handle 57 is grasped, the photo switch 60 detects the approach of the hand, and a door opening signal is sent to the door opening device 9. Next, the door opening device 59 that has received the door opening signal starts an operation of pushing out the door 53 from the back surface, and opens the door 53.

  The photo switch 10 and the push switch 61 provided on the side surface of the door 53 have the same action, and each detects an operation when a hand is placed on the side surface of the door or when the switch is intentionally pressed to open the door. A signal is generated.

  Further, when the photo switch 60 provided on the handle 58 detects the approach of the hand, it similarly generates a door opening signal, drives each door opening device (not shown) provided inside the refrigerator body 2, The door 54 or the door 55 or the door 56 is opened.

  As a result, the initial load when opening the door is reduced, and the door can be easily opened with a slight load of pushing the door opening switch 59.

JP 2002-295967 A

  However, in the conventional configuration described above, it is possible to reduce the load at the initial operation by a simple operation. On the other hand, in an electrical appliance having a large number of doors such as a refrigerator, if this type of mechanism is provided for each door, This increases the number of switch elements or sensor elements, and increases the man-hours and costs associated with mounting and wiring.

  The present invention solves the above-described conventional problems, and in a refrigerator having an automatic door opening and closing device, a refrigerator that suppresses the number of switch elements or sensor elements for operation, and the man-hours and costs related to installation and wiring. It is to provide.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, the refrigerator of the present invention detects acoustic pulse waves that are surface vibrations of the door material generated during an artificial operation to the refrigerator door, and identifies the position where the operation was performed from the detection result, Open the corresponding door. Thereby, the operation switch element provided for every door and the refrigerator which suppressed the man-hour concerning these wiring can be provided.

  The refrigerator of this invention detects the acoustic pulse wave which arises in a door material at the time of manual operation to a refrigerator door, specifies an operation position from a detection result, and performs the corresponding door opening operation | movement. Thereby, the man-hour concerning the operation switch element provided for every door and these wiring can be suppressed. Moreover, since the arbitrary position in a door surface can be used as an operation position, a simple, low-cost and highly practical refrigerator can be realized.

Front view of the refrigerator in Embodiment 1 of the present invention The side view of the refrigerator which shows the door open state in Embodiment 1 of this invention Control block diagram according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention Operation explanatory diagram of the operation detection means in Embodiment 1 of the present invention Perspective view of a conventional refrigerator

  According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a refrigerator main body having a plurality of storage chambers, a plurality of doors provided at the opening of the storage chamber so as to be opened and closed, and surface vibrations (acoustics) of the door material caused by contact with the door surface. Operation detecting means for detecting the generation position of the acoustic pulse wave, and opening means for operating the door of the corresponding refrigerator based on the result of the operation detecting means.

  As a result, the door surface of the refrigerator is used as an operation switch for outputting an acoustic pulse wave by human operation, and also as a signal transmission path (or wiring) for transmitting the acoustic pulse wave, so that the door is conventionally used. It is possible to obtain the effect of reducing the man-hours and cost factors related to the door opening switch elements required for each and the installation and wiring thereof.

  The second invention further includes a plurality of acoustic propagation paths for propagating the acoustic pulse wave to the refrigerator body, and the operation detection means is arranged at a predetermined position on the acoustic propagation path on the refrigerator body side. Thereby, since the operation information in a door surface can be transmitted to a refrigerator main body, the man-hour concerning the wiring connection between a door and a main body can be suppressed.

In the third aspect of the invention, the door handle is shared with the sound wave propagation means, so that the acoustic pulse wave generated on the door surface is propagated to the refrigerator body. Thereby, since the acoustic pulse wave which is operation information can be transmitted to the refrigerator main body side with a simple configuration, it is possible to provide a refrigerator in which the amount of internal wiring and the man-hours related to wiring are suppressed.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. Note that the present invention is not limited to the embodiments.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is a front view of the refrigerator according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a side view of the refrigerator compartment door of the refrigerator according to the embodiment. FIG. 3 is a control configuration diagram of the automatic door opening device and the operation unit of the refrigerator according to the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an operation explanatory view of the operation detection means of the refrigerator according to the embodiment.

  1 and 2, the refrigerator main body 10 is divided into a refrigerator compartment 12 at the top, a vegetable compartment 13 below it, and an ice-making storage compartment 14 and a temperature switching compartment 15 below it by a partitioning part 11 on the left and right sides. The freezer compartment 16 is formed in the lowermost part.

  A refrigerator compartment door 17 for opening and closing the refrigerator compartment 12 is installed on the front face of the opening of the refrigerator compartment 12 and is pivotally supported by an opposing hinge pin 23 extending vertically from the refrigerator main body 10 so that the refrigerator compartment door 17 rotates around the hinge. Installed on.

  Furthermore, slide doors 18, 19, 20, and 21 for opening and closing these are installed on the front surfaces of the vegetable room 13, ice making storage room 14, temperature switching room 15, and freezing room 16. In addition, there is an opening means 31 in the partition 11 at the upper part of the refrigerator compartment 12, and the rod section 31 a of the opening means 31 is linearly moved so that the refrigerator compartment door 17 can be pushed out. As the opening means, a motor-driven actuator or a solenoid-type driving device is used.

  Further, operation detection means 22 for detecting an acoustic pulse wave on the door surface is embedded in the refrigerator compartment door 17. In addition, a piezoelectric sensor element etc. are used as this kind of detection element.

  In addition, a refrigerator control device 25 is provided on the back surface of the refrigerator main body 10, and the operation detection means 22 and the refrigerator control device 25, and the refrigerator control device 25 and the opening means 31 are electrically connected.

  About the refrigerator comprised as mentioned above, the operation | movement and an effect | action are demonstrated below. As shown in the control configuration of FIG. 3, the acoustic pulse wave generated by human contact with the refrigerator compartment door 17 propagates on the surface of the refrigerator compartment door 17. The operation detection means 22 receives the acoustic pulse wave propagated through the door surface, and specifies the operation position by processing the received signal. The refrigerator control device 25 has a mechanism for driving the opening means 31 based on the operation position information.

  Here, the operation of the operation detection unit 22 will be described. As shown in the operation explanatory diagram in the figure, the door surface of the refrigerator is usually made of a metal material, glass material, plastic material or the like, and the surface of this kind of hard material is vibrated by human operation or the like. When applied, an acoustic wave propagates on the surface of the material, starting from the place where the vibration is applied. In particular, since the speed of the wave traveling in the material takes a certain time depending on the material, for example, when the operation detection means is composed of at least two piezoelectric sensors, the arrangement conditions of each sensor and the arrival of the acoustic pulse wave From the time difference (corresponding to t1-t2, t1-3, t2-t3 in the figure), the generation source (operation position) of the acoustic pulse wave can be obtained.

In addition, for disturbances such as vibrations that occur on the door surface other than by human operations, digital filter processing is performed on the input from the piezoelectric sensor, using conditions such as the natural vibration of the door surface material and input waveforms during human operation as filter conditions. be able to.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, the surface vibration (acoustic pulse wave) of the door material generated during the artificial operation to the refrigerator door is detected by the operation detection unit arranged on the door surface, and the operation is performed from the detection result. By identifying the position where there was, the corresponding door is opened. Accordingly, since it is possible to reduce the number of steps and costs related to elements such as switches that are conventionally arranged for each door and the installation and wiring of these elements, a simple, low-cost and highly practical refrigerator can be provided.

  In the present embodiment, the refrigerator compartment door of the refrigerator is described as an object. However, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, any storage room in the warehouse such as a vegetable compartment may be used. Absent. Further, it is obvious that acoustic pulse waves generated on a plurality of door surfaces can be collectively detected and the corresponding doors can be automatically opened depending on the generation position.

(Embodiment 2)
The refrigerator according to the second embodiment includes the acoustic propagation means in the refrigerator according to the first embodiment, and the operation detection means 22 is disposed on the refrigerator control device 25 side disposed on the back surface of the refrigerator main body 10. An acoustic propagation path from the refrigerator compartment door 17 to the refrigerator control device 25 is formed.

  Thereby, since the acoustic wave generated in the refrigerator compartment door 17 can be detected on the refrigerator main body 10 side, the operation detection means 22 is arranged in the vicinity of the refrigerator control device 25, so The amount can be suppressed.

  Further, in the refrigerator door 17, the acoustic propagation means is shared with the hinge portion which is a handle portion of the rotary door, so that a simple configuration can be used without adding new parts. An operation detection device can be realized.

  In the drawer door, the same effect can be realized by using the acoustic propagation means as a handle portion of the drawer door.

  As described above, the operation detection means in the automatic door opening and closing device according to the present invention can be implemented in appliances that automatically open and close doors, such as household or commercial refrigerators, and whether it is large or small. Applicable regardless.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Refrigerator main body 11 Partition part 12 Refrigeration room 13 Vegetable room 14 Ice making storage room 15 Temperature switching room 16 Freezing room 17 Refrigeration room door 18 Slide door (vegetable room)
19 Sliding door (ice storage room)
20 sliding door (ice storage room)
21 Sliding door (freezer compartment)
23 Opposing hinge pin 31 Opening means 31a Rod portion 22 Operation detecting means 25 Refrigerator control device

Claims (3)

A refrigerator body having a plurality of storage rooms;
A plurality of doors provided to be openable and closable at the openings of the plurality of storage chambers;
Operation detecting means for detecting an acoustic pulse wave that is a surface vibration of the door material caused by contact with the surfaces of the plurality of doors, and specifying a generation position of the acoustic pulse wave;
A refrigerator comprising: opening means for opening one of the plurality of doors based on a result of the operation detection means. The refrigerator according to claim 1, further comprising an acoustic propagation path for propagating the acoustic pulse wave to the refrigerator body, wherein the operation detection unit is disposed at a predetermined position on the acoustic propagation path. The refrigerator according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the predetermined position on the acoustic propagation path is a handle portion of the door.