JPH07171289A - Washing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a washing machine where the sort of fabric of laundry is accurately distinguished by a method wherein water level is changed in a few steps to obtain a pattern of changes in the inertia revolving number of an agitator impeller at each of the water levels and the sort of the laundry is distinguished according to the patterns obtained. CONSTITUTION:An inertia rotating number measuring device 15 controls a water supply valve 12 and a motor 7 and obtains the inertia rotating number of an agitator impeller 2 at each of specified water levels from detected values of a rotating number sensor 9. The data obtained are normalized by a normalizing device 16, and a fabric sort distinguishing device 17 distinguishes the sort of laundry based on the data obtained. The fabric sort distinguishing device 17 uses a neural network. A washing condition deciding device 18 decides washing conditions such as water flow rate, washing time, water current, etc., and a controller 19 executes controls so as to maintain those washing conditions decided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a washing machine for automatically determining the type of laundry and automatically determining various washing conditions according to the result.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional washing machine, there is one in which the inertial rotation speed when the stirring blade is stopped is detected by two levels of water level, and the cloth type is discriminated by the amount of change in the inertial rotation speed.

[0003]

According to the conventional method,
There is a problem that the type of laundry cannot be sufficiently discriminated because the feature amount (difference in the amount of change in inertial rotation speed) due to the type of laundry is small.

The present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems.
An object of the present invention is to provide a washing machine in which the water level is changed in several steps and the type of laundry is accurately determined by determining the type of laundry by the change pattern of the inertial rotation speed of the stirring blade obtained at each water level.

[0005]

Means for achieving the above-mentioned object include a motor for driving a stirring blade, a rotation speed sensor for detecting the inertial rotation speed of the stirring blade, and a water supply valve for controlling water supply. A water level sensor that detects the water level, and the inertial rotation speed measured by the rotation speed sensor by driving the motor for a predetermined time every time the detection value of the water level sensor, that is, the water level matches a plurality of predetermined values. A measuring unit, a normalization unit that normalizes the inertial rotation speed for each water level obtained from the inertial rotation speed measurement unit to a value in a predetermined section, and a inertial rotation speed for each normalized water level obtained by the normalization unit. The washing machine mixer further includes a cloth type discriminating unit for discriminating the type of laundry and a washing condition determining unit for discriminating various washing conditions from the discrimination result of the cloth type discriminating unit.

[0006]

The operation of the above means is as follows. The water supply valve is driven to start water supply, and when the detected value of the water level sensor reaches a predetermined value, the water supply is stopped and the motor is driven to rotate the stirring blade in a predetermined pattern. The inertial rotation speed measurement unit detects the inertial rotation speed of the stirring blade at this time. The above operation is performed at several levels of water level, and the inertial rotation speed at the water level is acquired. The inertial rotation speed obtained by the normalizing means is normalized. The cloth type discriminating means discriminates the type of laundry based on the normalized rotational speed of the total water level. Based on this determination result, the washing condition determination means determines various washing conditions. By the above operation, more appropriate cloth type determination can be performed, and appropriate laundry according to the type of laundry can be performed.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the washing machine of this embodiment. In FIG. 1, a washing tub 1 for storing laundry and washing water and an outer tub 2 for storing the washing water are configured. A stirring blade 3 for stirring laundry and washing water is rotated by a motor 4 via a belt 5 and a speed reduction mechanism 6. Motor drive unit 7
Is composed of a power element such as a triac, and controls the power supply to the motor 4 by a signal from the microcomputer 14. The rotation speed of the stirring blade 3 is detected by a rotation speed sensor 9 which detects the number of passages through a slit carved in the pulley 8 by a reflection type optical sensor. The water level sensor 10 detects the amount of water in the washing tub by detecting the atmospheric pressure in the air trap 11. Water is taken in and out of the washing tub by a solenoid valve, which is driven by a water supply valve 12 and a drain valve 13.
Controlled by. The water supply / drainage valve drive unit is composed of a power element such as a triac, and the water supply valve 12 and the drainage valve 13 are driven by a signal from the microcomputer 14.
Control the power supply to.

Next, the procedure for determining the cloth type will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a flow of cloth type discrimination.
First, the inertial rotation speed measurement unit 15 acquires the inertial rotation speed in the next step. (Step 1) Send a signal to the water supply / drainage valve drive unit to close the water discharge valve and open the water supply valve to start water supply. (Step 2) N predetermined water levels for detecting the inertial rotation speed are prepared in advance, and each water level is set to W (n). The detection value of the water level sensor and the water level W (n) are compared, and when the values reach the same value, the water supply is stopped. (Step 3) A signal is sent to the motor drive unit to drive the stirring blade in the pattern shown in FIG. 3, and the inertial rotation speed (T1, T2, T3, ... Tm) when each motor is off is detected by the rotation speed sensor. Then, let the average value of all inertial rotation speed be Kn. (Step 4) The above steps 1 to 3 are performed a predetermined number of times (N times) to obtain K1 to Kn.

Next, the normalizing means 16 calculates the above K1 to Kn.
The data in the [0,1] section is normalized to obtain P1 to Pn. N in Figure 4
= 5 is shown below.

Next, the cloth type discriminating means 17 inputs the P1 to Pn to the neural network to discriminate the cloth type. The neural network uses a three-layer backpropagation model (an example of n = 5 is shown in Fig. 5), and is trained in advance to output 0 for lingerie, 1 for jeans, 2 for jeans, and 3 for mixed clothing. There is.

That is, when the output result of the neural network is close to 0, the type of laundry is lingerie, 1
When it is close to, it is possible to identify the cloth type because it is called a cutter.

The washing condition determining means 18 is a cloth type determining means 17
The washing conditions such as the water level, the washing time, the water flow and the dehydration time are determined according to the result of the determination. The control means 19 controls the motor 4, the water supply valve 12, and the drain valve 13 according to the washing conditions.
For example, in the case of lingerie, increase the amount of water and weaken the flow of water.

The inertial rotation measuring unit 15, the normalizing unit 16, the cloth type discriminating unit 17, the washing condition determining unit 18, and the control unit 19 are realized by a program of the microcomputer 14. Although a neural network is used as the cloth type discriminating means 17, various non-linear information processing means such as fuzzy inference may be used. Further, although the neural network is realized by the program of the microcomputer 14 in this embodiment, it may be constituted by hardware such as a neurochip.

[0014]

As explained above, according to the washing machine of the present invention, the cloth type of the laundry is discriminated by recognizing the change pattern of the inertial rotation speed for each of several water levels by the neural net or the like. Therefore, it is possible to automatically perform appropriate washing depending on the type of cloth.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a washing machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an operation flow of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a drive pattern of a stirring blade according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an average value of all inertial rotation speeds (when n = 5).

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a back propagation model (when n = 5).

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Washing tub 2 Outer tub 3 Stirring blade 4 Motor 10 Water level sensor 12 Water supply valve 15 Inertial rotation speed measuring part 16 Normalizing means 17 Cloth type determining means 18 Washing condition determining means 19 Control means

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Masanori Matsuda, 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Masafumi Sadahira, 1006, Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A motor for driving a stirring blade, a rotation speed sensor for detecting the inertial rotation speed of the stirring blade, a water supply valve for controlling water supply, a water level sensor for detecting water level, and a detection value of the water level sensor, that is, Each time the water level is obtained from the inertial rotation speed measurement unit that drives the motor for a predetermined time every time the water level matches a plurality of predetermined values and measures the inertial rotation speed of the stirring blade with the rotation speed sensor. Normalizing means for normalizing the inertial rotation speed of the above to a value in a predetermined section, and cloth type determining means for determining the type of laundry from the inertial rotation speed for each water level after the normalization obtained by this normalizing means, A washing machine comprising: washing condition determining means for determining various washing conditions based on the determination result of the cloth type determining means.