JPH0478384A - Discharge control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make discharge appropriate automatically by providing an image pickup part for outputting the fluid flow state from a discharge opening as an image signal, and a control part for outputting a flow control signal on the basis of this image signal. CONSTITUTION:At the time of storing water in a wash pail 2, a recognizing part 7 performs shape extraction by an image signal from an image pickup part 3 so as to recognize the wash pail 2, and on the basis of this, a flow indicating part 9 opens a solenoid valve 6 to start discharge. The flow is gradually increased, and unless there is splash, increased to the maximum flow. When splash is started, the image pickup part 3 catches this, a judging part 8 recognizes this, and the flow indicating part 9 decreases the flow of the solenoid valve 6 on the basis of this recognition so as to make this discharge the maximum flow without the generation of splash. When overflow from the pail 2 is started, the same above-mentioned control is performed to stop discharge. At the time of washing hands, the recognizing part 7 recognizes the hands, and the judging part 8 judges whether discharge is appropriate for washing hands from the splash state and increases/decreases the discharge to obtain appropriate discharge.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a fluid discharge method capable of controlling the discharge amount of water or hot water from a discharge port for supplying water or hot water, such as a kitchen sink or a washstand. This relates to a control device.

Conventional Technology With the spread of water supply and the common use of water heaters, kitchen sinks and wash basins are equipped with faucets from the water supply and faucets from the water heater. I'm starting to get it.

Conventionally, this type of faucet as a discharge device has a rotating part, and by rotating this rotating part, the user can turn water or hot water on and off from the faucet, or control the amount of water discharged. There is. In addition, there are devices in which the rotating part is replaced with an up-and-down lever in order to change the operation from a rotational operation to an up-and-down operation. In addition, a hot water/cold mixing type outlet is also often used, in which hot water and water are mixed and supplied from a single outlet. This hot water mixing outlet may be of the so-called two-valve type, which has rotating parts for each of water and hot water, or may have only one lever.
There is a so-called one-lever type, in which the mixing ratio of water and hot water is adjusted by rotating the lever left and right, and the temperature of the mixed hot water is adjusted, and the mixing ratio of water and hot water is controlled by rotating the lever up and down. There are thermo-type mixing valves that are automatically controlled by means such as a wax thermostat.

Invention tries to solve! III! ! 1. With such conventional dispensing devices, some skill is required to obtain a dispensing amount suitable for various objects to which water or hot water fluid is supplied. The object to be discharged may be a washing tub in a sink, tableware such as a pot, plate, or bowl, food such as vegetables or fish, or a person's hand. The same washing tub may be empty at times and filled with dishes. If the flow rate of the fluid is not suitable for these various discharge targets, if the discharge volume is too large, it will cause scattering and water or hot water will be wasted, and if it is too low, it will take a long time or , the purpose of cleaning etc. may not be fully achieved. This kind of wasteful use is especially common when faucets are used by people who are not accustomed to operating faucets, such as children.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems, and aims to provide a so-called water-saving discharge control device that suppresses wasteful consumption of fluid by automatically optimizing the amount of fluid discharged to the object to be discharged. The purpose is

! Means for Solving Problem III The present invention is the above! In order to solve IN, we need a flow rate control means that controls the amount of fluid discharged from the discharge port, and an imaging unit that monitors the state in which the fluid from the discharge port is supplied to the object to be discharged and outputs it as an image signal. and a control section that outputs a control signal for increasing or decreasing the flow rate to the flow rate control means based on the image signal from the imaging section.

According to the above-described configuration, the imaging unit monitors the state in which the fluid from the discharge port is supplied to the object to be discharged and outputs it as an image signal, and the control unit controls the flow rate control unit to control the flow rate based on this image signal. By outputting control signals that increase and decrease, the discharge amount can always be kept at an appropriate amount no matter what the object is.
Wasteful consumption of fluid can be eliminated. Furthermore, since the operation is performed automatically, no skill is required on the part of the user.

EXAMPLE Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Although this embodiment will be explained using water or hot water as an example of the fluid, the present invention is not limited to this.
It can be applied to many things such as oil, alcohol, paint, medicine, powder, granules, etc.

As shown in the figure, the discharge control device includes a discharge outlet 1 of a faucet or shower head, etc., equipped with a water or field outlet;
Washing tub 2 as an example of an object from which water or hot water is discharged
an imaging section 3 such as a television camera that monitors the state of the supply to the camera and outputs it as an image signal; an operation section 4 through which the user instructs the start and end of dispensing; The control section 5 outputs a control signal to increase or decrease the flow rate to an electric valve 6, which is an example of a flow rate control means that controls the amount of water or hot water discharged from the outlet 1. The control unit 5 includes a recognition unit 7 that identifies the object to be discharged from an image signal, a determination unit 8 that determines whether or not the discharge amount is appropriate based on the image signal and the object to be discharged, and a recognition result of the recognition unit 7 and the determination unit 8. It consists of a flow rate instruction section 9 that outputs a control signal based on the determination result.

The operation of the above configuration will be explained in the case of storing water in the washing tub 2 and in the case of washing, such as washing hands or washing food while running water.

First, I will explain how to save money. When the user instructs the start of use using the operation unit 4, the recognition unit 7 extracts the shape from the image signal from the imaging unit 3 by detecting edges and converting it into binarization. Recognizing that it is a bucket, based on this recognition result, the flow rate instruction unit 9 sends a signal to the electric valve 6 to open the valve and start discharging, and to increase the flow rate over time. The electric valve 6 opens the valve and starts discharging in response to a signal from the flow rate indicator 8, and increases the flow rate over time. Initially, no water splashes occur, and this state is captured by the imaging unit 3. The determination unit 8 of the control unit 5 determines from the image signal from the imaging unit 3 that scattering has not occurred. Flow rate indicator 9
continues to output a signal to increase the flow rate based on this judgment result,
The electric valve 6 opens to increase the flow rate, and the flow rate from the discharge port 1 to the washing tub 2 continues to increase. In this way, if no water splashes occur along the way, the flow rate reaches the maximum flow rate. The value of this maximum flow rate can be set by the user as necessary by providing a maximum flow rate setting means in the control section 5. If scattering occurs, this state is captured by the imaging unit 3, the determination unit 8 recognizes this, the flow rate instruction unit 9 outputs a signal to reduce the flow rate based on the recognition result, and the electric valve 6 controls the valve. It is operated in the closing direction and the flow rate is controlled. This operation continues until the scattering condition is resolved. Splashing water is detected on the image as fluid movement as it collides with the object to be discharged and scatters in all directions.
By time-differentiating this image signal, the presence or absence of scattering can be detected.

Through the series of operations described above, water is discharged into the washing tub 2 at the maximum flow rate without causing any splashing. In this way, when water accumulates in the washing tub 2 and begins to overflow, the imaging unit 3 captures this, the determination unit 8 recognizes the overflow state from the image signal from the imaging unit 3, and the flow rate indicator 9 recognizes this. Based on the result, a signal to stop the discharge is output, and the electric valve 6 closes its valve based on this signal, and the discharge is stopped. Note that if the user instructs to stop using the operation unit 4 at any time, the flow rate instruction unit 9 outputs a signal to stop the discharge, and the electric valve 6 closes the valve based on this signal, stopping the discharge. .

Next, the case of cleaning will be explained. In the case of cleaning, human hands are always involved, whether it is washing hands or washing food. Furthermore, in the case of cleaning, naturally there is some amount of scattering, and if the discharge amount is controlled solely based on the presence or absence of scattering, it is not possible to obtain a flow rate suitable for cleaning. In this embodiment, when the recognition unit 7 recognizes a human hand, the determination unit 8 uses fuzzy reasoning means to determine whether the current discharge amount is suitable for cleaning based on the recognition result and the degree of scattering. Judgment is made using Fuzzy inference consists of a rule part that describes an antecedent part that describes the scattering state linguistically, a consequent part that linguistically describes the flow rate, and a rule part that describes the current scattering state in accordance with each rule. and an inference section that infers the appropriateness of the ejection amount from the degree to which the discharge amount is determined. If there is a large scattering, the determining unit 8 determines that it is excessive by fuzzy reasoning, and the flow rate indicating unit 9 outputs a signal to reduce the discharge amount based on this signal,
The electric valve 6 operates in the closing direction and the discharge amount is reduced. If the degree of scattering is too small, the determination unit 8 determines that it is too small by fuzzy reasoning, the flow rate indicator 9 outputs a signal to increase the discharge amount based on this signal, the electric valve 6 operates in the fully open direction, and the discharge amount increases. increases. If the degree of scattering becomes appropriate through such an operation, the determining section 8 determines that the discharge amount is appropriate, and the flow rate indicating section 9 stops outputting an increase or decrease signal to the electric valve 6. Even in this case, if the user instructs to stop using the operation unit 4 at any time, the flow rate instruction unit 9 outputs a signal to stop the discharge, and the electric valve 6 closes its valve based on this signal, causing the discharge to stop. stops. Through the above-described operation, the discharge amount is controlled to an amount suitable for cleaning.

In the above embodiments, the case of water has been described, but the same method can be applied to the case of hot water or a mixture of water and hot water. Furthermore, although the imaging section is independent of the ejection port, changes such as integrating it with the ejection port may be made as long as it is located at a position where the state of ejection onto the object can be captured, and the imaging section may be separated from the control section. When the image signal is provided at a location where the image signal is transmitted, a wireless signal may be used instead of a wired signal to transmit the image signal.

Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above embodiments, according to the present invention, the amount of fluid discharged can be controlled using an image, so no matter who uses it, the amount of fluid discharged can be controlled according to the object to be discharged. Since an appropriate discharge amount is automatically obtained, wasteful consumption of fluid is eliminated and savings are achieved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figure is a schematic configuration diagram of a discharge control device according to an embodiment of the present invention. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Discharge port, 2... Discharge target, 3... Imaging section, 5... Control section, 6... Flow rate control means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A discharge port having a fluid outlet, a flow rate control means for controlling the flow rate of the fluid discharged from the discharge port, and a state in which the fluid from the discharge port is supplied to an object to be discharged is monitored and output as an image signal. and a control section that outputs a control signal for increasing or decreasing the flow rate to the flow rate control means based on an image signal from the image pickup section.