KR101660045B1

KR101660045B1 - A refrigerator and control method the same

Info

Publication number: KR101660045B1
Application number: KR1020100016030A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 엄용환; 이호연; 김영진
Original assignee: 엘지전자 주식회사
Priority date: 2010-02-23
Filing date: 2010-02-23
Publication date: 2016-09-26
Also published as: KR20110096670A

Abstract

The present invention relates to a refrigerator and a control method of the refrigerator.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a refrigerator comprising: a storage chamber for storing a stored product; An evaporator for evaporating the refrigerant to supply cool air to the storage chamber; A heating unit for defrosting the evaporator; A photographing apparatus provided at one side of the evaporator, the photographing apparatus being operated to photograph the evaporator; And a control unit for controlling the heating unit to operate when the cone amount exceeds a preset amount.
According to the refrigerator of the present embodiment, it is possible to photograph the frost that is conceived on the evaporator by using the photographing apparatus, and it is possible to determine the conception amount based on the photographed image.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to a control method for a refrigerator and a refrigerator,

An embodiment of the present invention relates to a control method of a refrigerator and a refrigerator.

Generally, a refrigerator is a device capable of cooling a storage room, that is, a freezing room or a refrigerating room while repeating a refrigeration cycle, so that food can be kept fresh for a predetermined period of time. The refrigeration cycle includes a compressor, a condenser, an expansion means, and an evaporator.

The refrigerator includes a main body defining a storage space and a door selectively shielding the main body. The storage space is filled with a storage material, and the user can open the door to take out the storage material.

The evaporator is a heat exchanger for supplying cold air to the freezer compartment or the refrigerating compartment. When the evaporator is used for a long time, a humidifier is frozen on the outer side of the evaporator, resulting in the conception.

According to the conventional refrigerator, the heat exchange efficiency of the evaporator is lowered due to the impregnation of the surface of the evaporator, so that cold air can not be easily supplied to the storage compartment.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a refrigerator capable of effectively defrosting an evaporated evaporator.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a refrigerator which can detect the amount of frost that is conceived on an evaporator by using a photographing means.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a refrigerator comprising: a storage chamber for storing a stored product; An evaporator for evaporating the refrigerant to supply cool air to the storage chamber; A heating unit for defrosting the evaporator; A photographing apparatus provided at one side of the evaporator, the photographing apparatus being operated to photograph the evaporator; And a control unit for controlling the heating unit to operate when the cone amount exceeds a preset amount.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a control method for a refrigerator, including: a compressor being driven to perform heat exchange of an evaporator; Photographing the evaporator when the predetermined condition is satisfied; Extracting a pixel value corresponding to a conception of the evaporator by applying a binarization technique from an image of the evaporator; And driving the defrost heater to cause defrosting of the evaporator if the pixel value is equal to or greater than a predetermined value.

According to the refrigerator of the embodiment of the present invention, it is possible to photograph the frost which is conceived in the evaporator by using the photographing apparatus, and to determine the conception amount based on the photographed image.

Further, there is an effect that the frost and the background can be distinguished from the image obtained by the photographing apparatus by the image processing technique, especially the binarization technique, and the actual implantation amount can be accurately discriminated according to the number of pixels brighter than the reference value.

In addition, since defrosting can be selectively performed according to the actual implantation amount, unnecessary defrosting can be prevented, and power consumption can be reduced.

1 is a perspective view of a refrigerator according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 2 is a view showing a state in which the cover plate is removed with respect to the portion "A" in Fig.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a refrigerator according to a first embodiment of the present invention; FIG.
4 is a flow chart showing the operation of the refrigerator according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a refrigerator according to a second embodiment of the present invention; FIG.
6 is a flow chart showing the operation of a refrigerator according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the spirit of the invention is not limited to the embodiments shown and that those skilled in the art, upon reading and understanding the spirit of the invention, may easily suggest other embodiments within the scope of the same concept.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a refrigerator according to a first embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 2 is a view showing a state in which a cover plate is removed with respect to a portion "A"

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a refrigerator 1 according to a first embodiment of the present invention includes a main body 10 having a storage chamber and a front opening. The freezing chamber 11 and the freezing chamber 12 may be partitioned by the partition 15. The freezing chamber 11 and the freezing chamber 12 may be separated from each other.

The main body 10 includes an inner case 10a forming at least one surface of the storage chamber. The inner appearance of the storage chamber may be defined by the inner case 10a.

The refrigerator 1 includes a freezing compartment door 21 and a refrigerating compartment door 22 which are rotatably coupled to the front of the main body 10 and selectively shield the freezing compartment 11 and the refrigerating compartment 12, do.

In this embodiment, a bottom freezer type in which a freezing chamber is formed in a lower portion and a refrigerating chamber is formed in an upper portion will be described as an example. However, the idea of the present invention is not limited to the structure of the refrigerator, but may be a top mount type in which a freezing chamber is formed at an upper portion and a refrigerating chamber is formed at a lower side, or a side by side where a freezing chamber and a refrigerating chamber are provided, It is also possible to apply it to the type.

Specifically, the storage chamber includes a shelf 52 in which the storage can be stored, and a storage box 54 that is provided in a drawable manner. On the rear surface of the doors 21 and 22, a plurality of door baskets 56 may be provided for storing the stored items.

The freezing chamber 11 is provided with a cold discharge unit 32 for discharging the cool air generated in the evaporator 100 to the freezing chamber 11. The cool air discharge unit 32 may be provided on the rear surface of the freezer compartment 11 and may be formed on the cover plate 30. The evaporator 100 is disposed behind the cover plate 30.

The cover plate 30 is formed with a cool air inflow portion 31 through which cool air circulated in the freezing chamber 11 flows into the evaporator 100 side. The cool air inflow portion 31 may be formed at a lower portion of the cover plate 30.

The cool air generated in the evaporator 100 is discharged to the freezer compartment 11 through the cool air discharge unit 32. The cool air circulated in the freezer compartment 11 is supplied to the evaporator 100 through the cool air inflow unit 31, 100) side and can be cooled again.

The evaporator 100 includes a refrigerant pipe 110 through which refrigerant flows and a cooling fin 120 through which the refrigerant pipe 110 is inserted and heat exchange between the refrigerant and the surrounding air is facilitated.

The refrigerant passing through the refrigerant pipe 110 may flow to a compressor (not shown) through the gas-liquid separator 180.

A heating unit 140 is provided on the lower side of the evaporator 100 to remove the frost on the surface of the evaporator 100. The heating unit 140 may include a defrost heater. The heat generating unit 140 is operated in a state where the heat exchange in the evaporator 200 is interrupted, and the heat can be supplied to the evaporator 240 to remove the frost.

A defrost water receiver (130) for collecting defrost water generated during the defrosting process of the evaporator (100) is provided below the evaporator (100).

On one side of the evaporator 100, a photographing apparatus 200 for photographing the evaporator 100 is provided.

More specifically, the photographing apparatus 200 is provided with an image of the evaporator 100, that is, a refrigerant pipe 110 and a cooling fin 120 constituting the evaporator 100, and a shape of a frost that is conceived on the evaporator 100 And a lighting unit 220 provided at one side of the photographing unit 210 and emitting light toward the evaporator 100. The lighting unit 220 may be a light source,

A heater (not shown) may be provided around the lens (not shown) or the illumination unit 220 provided in the photographing unit 210. The photographing unit 210 and the illuminating unit 220 may be exposed to a low-temperature environment and frosted, so that the heater can be prevented from being formed periodically or at a specific time to form a frost.

The illumination unit 220 includes an LED. The illumination unit 220 is turned on at the time of imaging by the imaging unit 210 and can be kept in the OFF state when the imaging unit 210 is not imaged.

The illumination unit 220 and the illumination unit 220 may be integrally formed with the illumination unit 220. The illumination unit 220 may be formed integrally with the illumination unit 220. [

That is, the illumination unit 220 may be provided in the photographing unit 210 and may be simultaneously turned on when the photographing unit 210 is imaged.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a refrigerator according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the refrigerator according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

3 and 4, the refrigerator 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention includes a photographing unit 210 and an illuminating unit 220 for photographing the evaporator 100, A timer 280 for determining a driving time point of the illumination unit 220 and a heating unit 140 generating heat for defrosting the evaporator 100 and a control unit 250 for controlling the configuration.

The timer 280 may count the elapsed time after the refrigerating cycle is driven in the refrigerator 1, for example, after the power of the refrigerator is turned on or the compressor (not shown) is activated.

When the time counted by the timer 280 reaches a preset time, the controller 250 may control the operations of the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220. The predetermined time may have a time value. In this case, the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 may be operated at regular intervals.

As described above, since the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 are selectively driven according to predetermined conditions (time), there is an advantage that the power consumption can be reduced.

The control unit 250 may drive the heating unit 140 to melt the frost that has been conceived in the evaporator 100 and remove the frost from the image obtained by the image capturing unit 210 have.

Hereinafter, a process for determining the amount of frost from the image acquired by the photographing unit 210 will be described.

The original image obtained by the operation of the photographing unit 210 includes a frost (object) fused to the evaporator 100 and a background other than the frost. The background may include a refrigerant pipe 110 and a cooling fin 120 constituting the evaporator 100 or an image around the evaporator 100.

At this time, the frost may have a higher brightness value, i.e., a lighter color than the background. An image processing method, especially a binarization, may be applied to obtain a pixel value proportional to the implantation amount of the evaporator 100 to separate the frost from the background.

The term "binarization technique" refers to a task of changing (dividing) pixels (pixels) to 0 and 1 (or 255) according to the brightness value of an image (image). By the binarization technique, the object (object) containing the image can be separated from the background.

In the present embodiment, the object corresponds to a frost, and the background may correspond to a surrounding image other than a frost.

In order to separate the frost from the background, a reference threshold value is defined. A pixel having a brightness value higher than the threshold value is recognized as 255, and a pixel having a brightness value lower than the threshold value is recognized as 0.

For example, when one pixel of the image obtained through the photographing unit 210 has brightness 150 and the threshold value is set to 120, the pixel is recognized as 255 and can be determined to be frost.

On the other hand, for the threshold value 120, when the other pixel is at brightness 110, the other pixel is recognized as 0 and can be judged to be background. For convenience of explanation, in the following, a pixel corresponding to 255 is referred to as a "bright pixel ", and a pixel corresponding to 0 is referred to as a" dark pixel ".

The threshold value may be set to an appropriate value in consideration of the background around the evaporator 100 and the brightness of the frost. The threshold value may be preset and stored in the controller 250.

In addition, the binarization technique is programmed and stored in the controller 250, and the controller 250 applies the binarization technique to the image obtained by the photographing unit 210 to obtain bright pixels and dark pixels It is classified. The bright pixel corresponds to a frost, and the dark pixel corresponds to a portion corresponding to a background.

The number of bright pixels, that is, the pixel value corresponding to the impregnation of the evaporator 100 is proportional to the amount of frost conceived in the evaporator 100, so that when the number of bright pixels is detected to be equal to or greater than a predetermined number, It can be determined that a predetermined amount of frost has been concealed on the substrate 100.

At this time, the controller 250 may control the heating unit 140 to perform the defrosting operation.

A control method of the refrigerator 1 according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

When the power of the refrigerator is turned on or the compressor starts to be started, a refrigeration cycle in which the refrigerant passes through the compressor, the condenser, the expansion device, and the evaporator is driven. Here, the evaporator 100 functions to evaporate the refrigerant that has passed through the expansion device (S11).

When the refrigeration cycle is driven, the timer 280 measures the driving time of the cycle. Then, it is determined whether the driving time measured by the timer 280 has passed a preset time (S12, S13).

When the measured driving time has passed a preset time, the illumination unit 220 is turned on, and the photographing unit 210 operates to pick up a frost and a surrounding background implanted in the evaporator 100. However, if the measured drive time does not exceed the predetermined time, the process returns to step S12 (S14, S15).

When the photographing of the photographing unit 210 is completed, the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 are turned off. By such a control, there is an advantage that unnecessary power consumption can be prevented (S16).

A binarization technique is applied to the image obtained by the imaging by the photographing unit 210. [ When the binarization technique is applied to the image, the frost of the evaporator 100 is defined as a bright pixel, and the background other than a frost is defined as a dark pixel. The conceivable amount of the evaporator 100 can be determined according to the number of bright pixels (S17, S18).

If it is determined that the number of bright pixels is equal to or greater than the preset number of pixels, that is, if it is determined that the amount of impregnation of the evaporator 100 is equal to or greater than a preset value, the heating unit 140 is operated to perform defrosting of the evaporator . However, if it is determined that the amount of impregnation of the evaporator 100 is smaller than a predetermined amount, the flow returns to step S12 (S19, S20).

According to such a configuration and control method, the amount of frost actually implanted in the evaporator 100 can be sensed according to the operation of the photographing apparatus 200, and the effect that the defrosting operation can be performed according to the detected amount have.

Hereinafter, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. Since the present embodiment differs from the first embodiment in driving timing of the photographing apparatus, the differences will be mainly described, and the description of the first embodiment and the reference numerals will be used for the same portions.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a refrigerator according to a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the operation of a refrigerator according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

5, the refrigerator 1 according to the second embodiment of the present invention is provided with a photographing unit 210 for photographing and a photographing unit 210 for directing the photographing unit 210 toward the evaporator 100 A lighting unit 220 for illuminating and a heating unit 140 for generating heat for defrosting the evaporator 100.

The refrigerator 1 is provided with a timer 280 for counting operation times of the photographing unit 210 and the lighting unit 220 and a door switch 290 for detecting the opening of the doors 21 and 22, And a control unit 250 for controlling these configurations.

A control method of the refrigerator according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

The number of opening of the doors 21 and 22 can be detected by the door switch 290 in a state where the refrigeration cycle is driven after the power of the refrigerator is turned on.

When the doors 21 and 22 are frequently opened, a humidifier having a predetermined humidity flows into the storage chambers 11 and 12, and the introduced humidifiers are more likely to be implanted in the evaporator 100 in a low temperature environment (S21, S22).

When the number of openings of the doors 21 and 22 reaches a predetermined number of times, the lighting unit 220 is turned on and the photographing unit 210 is operated to pick up a frost and a surrounding background that are implanted in the evaporator 100 do.

That is, the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 can be operated according to preset conditions, that is, whether or not the number of openings of the doors 21 and 22 reaches a preset number of times.

On the other hand, if the number of openings of the doors 21 and 22 has not reached the preset number of times, the process returns to step S22 (S23, S24, S25).

When the photographing of the photographing unit 210 is completed, the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 are turned off. By this control, there is an advantage that unnecessary power consumption can be prevented (S26).

The binarization technique is applied to the image obtained by the imaging unit 210 to determine the implantation amount of the evaporator 100 (S27, S28).

If it is determined that the amount of impregnation of the evaporator 100 is equal to or greater than a preset value, the heating unit 140 is operated to perform the defrosting operation of the evaporator (S29, S30).

However, if it is determined that the con- vey amount of the evaporator 100 is smaller than the predetermined value (amount), the subsequent refrigeration cycle driving time is measured by the timer 280 (S31).

If the time measured by the timer 280 lapses, the operation returns to step S24 to operate the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 (S32). Then, the steps S24 to S30 are performed again.

Another embodiment is proposed.

The operation of the photographing unit 210 and the illumination unit 220 is controlled according to the number of times of opening of the doors 21 and 22 by using the door switch 290. However, The operation may be controlled according to the opening time.

That is, when the opening time of the doors 21 and 22 has passed a preset time, the photographing unit 210 and the illuminating unit 220 are operated to acquire the frost and background image of the evaporator 100 . Then, the operation of the heat generating unit 140 may be controlled by determining the implantation amount of the evaporator 100 from the obtained image.

100: Evaporator 130:
140: heating part 200: photographing device
210: photographing unit 220: illuminating unit
280: Timer 290: Door switch

Claims

A storage room in which the stored product is stored at low temperature by a refrigeration cycle;
A door selectively shielding the storage chamber;
A door switch for detecting opening of the door;
An evaporator for evaporating the refrigerant to supply cool air to the storage chamber;
A heating unit for defrosting the evaporator;
A photographing apparatus provided at one side of the evaporator, the photographing apparatus being operated to photograph the evaporator; And
And a control unit for controlling the heating unit to operate when the cone amount exceeds a preset amount,
Wherein the control unit counts an opening time of the door and determines an ignition amount of the evaporator when an opening time of the door exceeds a preset time.

The method according to claim 1,
In the photographing apparatus,
A photographing unit for photographing a frost and a background around the evaporator; And
Further comprising: an illuminating unit that emits light towards the evaporator in the process of imaging the photographing unit.

3. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the photographing unit or the illuminating unit is turned on when preset conditions are satisfied.

delete

The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the controller applies image processing to obtain a pixel value proportional to an implantation amount of the evaporator.

6. The method of claim 5,
In the image processing,
And a binarization method for separating frost and other images from the obtained image to determine an implantation amount of the evaporator.

The compressor is driven to perform heat exchange of the evaporator;
Photographing the evaporator when the door opening time reaches a predetermined time;
Extracting a pixel value corresponding to a conception of the evaporator by applying a binarization technique from an image of the evaporator; And
And driving the defrost heater to cause defrosting of the evaporator if the pixel value is equal to or greater than a predetermined value.

8. The method of claim 7,
In the step of photographing the evaporator,
And a step of illuminating the lighting unit toward the evaporator.

9. The method of claim 8,
The photographing unit and the illuminating unit,
Wherein the controller is periodically operated when a preset time elapses after the compressor is driven.

8. The method of claim 7,
In the step of extracting the pixel value,
And dividing the frosted frost of the evaporator and other images based on a preset threshold value.

8. The method of claim 7,
Wherein the pixel value is increased in proportion to the frost conceived in the evaporator.