JP2017128242A - Air conditioning control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an air conditioning control device that estimates a body type of an occupant accurately to control air conditioning equipment depending on the body type of the occupant, thereby improving comfort.SOLUTION: The air conditioning control device includes: an infrared sensor 3 for detecting temperature of an occupant in a non-contact manner to acquire distribution of temperature; and a control part 7 for controlling air conditioning depending on detection result of the infrared sensor 3. The air conditioning control device estimates a body type of an occupant from the distribution of temperature and controls the air conditioning equipment 10 depending on the body type.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an air conditioning control device that controls air conditioning of a vehicle.

  Conventionally, an occupant in a passenger compartment is detected using an infrared sensor, the physique of the occupant is determined based on information on the occupant's weight and seating position, and an air conditioner provided in the vehicle is controlled.

JP-A-2015-83407

  However, since the conventional air conditioning control device determines the occupant's physique from the occupant's weight and the seating position information, the occupant's physique determination, such as erroneous detection that a heavy load is placed on the seat, etc. There was a problem that the accuracy of was low.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an air conditioning control device that solves the above problems, improves the estimation accuracy of the occupant's physique, and improves the comfort of the occupant.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention comprises an infrared sensor that detects the temperature of an occupant in a non-contact manner and acquires a temperature distribution, and a control unit that controls air conditioning according to the detection result of the infrared sensor, and the temperature distribution From this, the physique of the occupant was estimated, and the air conditioner was controlled according to the physique.

  Since the vehicle control apparatus of the present invention estimates the occupant's physique from the temperature distribution and controls the air conditioner, the occupant's comfort can be improved.

The block diagram which shows the structure of the air-conditioning control apparatus of Embodiment 1. The figure which shows the car where the same air conditioning control device is installed The figure which shows the scanning of the infrared sensor of the same air conditioning control device A graph showing the correlation between the occupation rate and the physique of the air conditioning controller

(Embodiment 1)
Below, the air-conditioning control apparatus in Embodiment 1 is demonstrated, using drawing.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an air conditioning control device according to Embodiment 1, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a vehicle provided with the air conditioning control device.

  The air-conditioning control apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment includes an infrared sensor 3 installed in a vehicle 2, a scanning unit 4 that scans the infrared sensor 3, and a processing unit 6 that estimates the physique and thermal sensation of the occupant 5 from the infrared output. And the control part 7 which controls the air-conditioning equipment provided in the vehicle 2 based on a thermal sensation, and the communication part 8 which acquires vehicle 2 information are included. Further, the infrared sensor 3 and an infrared interface circuit (hereinafter referred to as an infrared sensor I / F 9) are connected. The infrared sensor I / F 9 is connected to the processing unit 6, the processing unit 6 is connected to the control unit 7, and the control unit 7 is connected to the HVAC 10 (showing Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning). ing. The communication unit 8 communicates with a seat 11 provided in the vehicle 2 and acquires position, height, and angle information of the seat 11.

  The infrared sensor 3 has a thermal infrared detection unit in which a temperature sensing unit is embedded, and the temperature sensing unit is configured by a thermopile that converts thermal energy generated by infrared rays radiated from a detection object into electrical energy. A thermoelectric converter is used. In addition, the infrared sensor 3 includes an a × b pixel unit 12 (non-contact infrared detection element) having a MOS transistor for taking out a temperature sensing unit and an output voltage of the temperature sensing unit on one surface side of the semiconductor substrate. Arranged in a two-dimensional array of a rows and b columns, the pixel portion 12 in the first embodiment is configured to be 8 × 8.

  The infrared sensor 3 is installed on the ceiling 13 of the vehicle 2 so that the driver's seat and the passenger's seat are detected by the infrared sensor 3 so that the driver 5 and the passenger's passenger, which are the detection targets of the infrared sensor 3, can be detected. The infrared sensor 3 is scanned so as to enter the region. The installation position of the infrared sensor 3 is not limited to the ceiling 13 and may be installed on, for example, a pillar or a dashboard as long as the occupant 5 can be detected.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating scanning of the infrared sensor by the scanning unit.

  The scanning unit 4 is composed of a motor or the like, and rotates the infrared sensor 3 around the rotation axis 14 in the direction of the major axis 15 of the pixel unit 12 by a distance b at regular intervals. Scanning is performed until the detection area of the sensor 3 is entered. The infrared sensor 3 detects infrared rays each time scanning is performed, and when scanning is completed, the temperature distribution obtained by the infrared sensor I / F 9 is added to obtain the temperature distribution. In addition, the infrared sensor 3 that has completed scanning is scanned in the reverse direction. Similarly, each time the distance b is scanned, infrared rays are detected, and when the reverse scanning is completed, the temperature distribution is acquired. Note that the temperature distribution may be acquired after the infrared sensor 3 is reciprocated once. By doing in this way, a temperature distribution with higher resolution can be acquired.

  Here, when the temperature distribution is obtained without scanning the infrared sensor 3 by scanning the infrared sensor 3 by the distance b and processing by using the temperature distribution obtained by adding the obtained temperature distributions. It is possible to improve the resolution and obtain a more detailed temperature distribution. Thus, by obtaining a high-resolution temperature distribution, the temperature of the occupant 5 and the temperature of the background of the seat 11 and the like can be separated, and the temperature of the occupant 5 can be accurately measured. Further, by obtaining a high-resolution temperature distribution, it is possible to determine the occupant 5, for example, the driver and the passenger on the passenger seat.

  As shown in FIG. 3, by scanning the infrared sensor 3 in the direction of the major axis 15 of the pixel unit 12, it is possible to obtain a temperature distribution with a higher resolution than when scanning in the direction of the minor axis 16. In the first embodiment, scanning is performed in the direction of the major axis 15 of the pixel portion 12, but this is not a limitation, and the angle θ between the direction of the minor axis 16 and the scanning direction is 0 ° <θ <90 °. In addition, if scanning is performed in a direction having an angle, a temperature distribution with high resolution can be obtained.

  The processing unit 6 includes a calculation unit 17 that estimates thermal sensation based on the temperature distribution obtained by the infrared sensor 3, a setting unit 18 in which a threshold value used for estimation of thermal sensation is set, and thermal sensation The correction | amendment part 19 which correct | amends this estimation result, and the physique estimation part 20 which estimates the physique of the passenger | crew 5 are comprised. The thermal sensation indicates whether the occupant feels hot or cold, such as "hot", "very hot", "cold", "very cold", "just good", etc. Stages of thermal sensation are set according to how passengers feel.

  The HVAC 10 includes a control unit 7 that controls air conditioning equipment, and a louver 21, a compressor 22, and a fan 23 that are connected to the control unit 7. The control unit 7 controls the louver 21, the compressor 22, and the fan 23 according to the output of the correction unit 19 to control the air conditioning.

  Next, control of air conditioning in the air conditioning control device 1 will be described.

  The physique estimation unit 20 estimates the physique of the occupant 5 based on the temperature distribution acquired by the infrared sensor 3. The physique estimation unit 20 stores the position of the sheet 11 in advance. When the temperature distribution is acquired, the occupation ratio is detected as the ratio of the occupant 5 to the seat 11.

  First, the passenger 11 is detected by masking the temperature distribution sheet 11. By masking the seat 11 in this way, it is possible to prevent the temperature distributions of the occupant 5 sitting on the rear seat 11 and the occupant 5 sitting on the front seat 11 from overlapping and detecting erroneously. For detection of the occupant 5, a distribution exceeding a preset first threshold is detected from the temperature distribution, and the occupant 5 is estimated. Here, the first threshold is 30 ° C. In the temperature distribution, when the area of the human region exceeding the first threshold is A and the area of the sheet 11 is B, the occupation ratio is calculated as B / A × 100. When the occupation ratio does not exceed the second threshold value, it is determined that the heat source is not the occupant 5 but the occupant 5 such as a seat heater. Here, the second threshold is set to 30%. Thus, by detecting the occupant 5 from the occupancy rate, the occupant 5 can be detected with higher accuracy than when the occupant 5 is determined by the weight sensor. When the occupancy is 30% or less, it is assumed that there is no occupant 5 and the air flow rate for the seat 11 with an occupancy of 30% or less is weakened or the air conditioner is stopped. By doing in this way, since the useless ventilation to the place where the passenger | crew 5 does not exist is stopped, energy saving can be aimed at. Although the first threshold value is 30 ° C. and the second threshold value is 30%, the present invention is not limited to this.

  Next, the temperature distribution is divided into a head and a body, and it is determined whether there is a head. At this time, when the head is detected, it is determined that there is an occupant 5, and when the head is not detected, it is determined that there is no occupant 5. By doing in this way, the erroneous detection of the passenger | crew 5 by a seat heater can be prevented. Note that the shape of the human area may be used for the head determination, or the position information of the sheet 11 acquired by the communication unit 8 may be used. If it judges from the shape of temperature distribution, the structure of the air-conditioning control apparatus 1 can be simplified, and if the positional information on the sheet 11 is used, the occupation ratio can be accurately detected even when the sheet 11 is tilted. .

  Next, the physique of the occupant 5 is estimated from the size of the human area. FIG. 4 shows a graph showing the correlation between the occupation ratio and the physique. As shown in FIG. 4, the size of the occupant 5 increases as the occupation ratio increases. Air-conditioning control according to the physique of the passenger 5 is performed. When the occupant 5 has a small physique, the comfort of the occupant 5 is improved by changing the wind direction downward so that the occupant 5 is blown by air conditioning, or by changing the wind direction upward when the physique is large. Control. In addition, since the larger the physique, the greater the metabolism, when it is determined that the physique is large, the thermal sensation is corrected to the hot side. Controlling the air conditioner in this way can improve the comfort of the occupant 5. In addition, you may use the positional information on the sheet | seat 11 for estimation of a physique. By using the position information of the sheet 11, the physique can be estimated more accurately.

  The present invention can accurately control the air conditioning according to the occupant's thermal sensation, and thus is useful for vehicle air conditioning control and the like.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Air-conditioning control apparatus 2 Vehicle 3 Infrared sensor 4 Scanning part 5 Crew 6 Processing part 7 Control part 8 Communication part 9 Infrared sensor I / F
10 HVAC
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Sheet 12 Pixel part 13 Ceiling 14 Rotation axis 15 Long axis 16 Short axis 17 Calculation part 18 Setting part 19 Correction part 20 Body size estimation part 21 Louver 22 Compressor 23 Fan

Claims (6)

An air conditioning control device that controls air conditioning equipment provided in a vehicle,
An infrared sensor that detects the temperature of an occupant in a non-contact manner and acquires a temperature distribution;
A processing unit for estimating the physique of the occupant from the temperature distribution;
A control unit for controlling air conditioning according to the detection result of the infrared sensor,
The air-conditioning control apparatus which controls the said air-conditioning apparatus according to the said physique. The air conditioning control device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit detects an occupation ratio of the occupant with respect to a seat on which the occupant sits. The air conditioning control device according to claim 2, wherein the processing unit has a first threshold value for determining the occupancy ratio, and determines a region in the temperature distribution that exceeds the first threshold value as a region where the occupant is present. . The said processing part has the 2nd threshold value determined to be the said passenger | crew, and when the said occupation rate is below the said 2nd threshold value, it performs control which weakens or stops the output of the said air-conditioning equipment. The air conditioning control device described. The air conditioning control device according to claim 1, wherein the processing unit estimates a thermal sensation of the occupant from the temperature distribution and controls the air conditioning equipment according to the thermal sensation. The air conditioning control device according to claim 1, wherein position information of a seat on which the occupant sits is acquired, and the physique is estimated using the position information.

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