AIR CONDITIONER

• US 20100063636A1
• Filed: 09/04/2009
• Published: 03/11/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
• Inventors: WATANABE, Shintaro, KAGE, Hiroshi, HIROSAKI, Hiroshi, KATAOKA, Yoshikuni, MATSUMOTO, Takashi
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,384 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/276
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/30 for purposes related to the operation of the system, e.g. for safety or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/56 Remote control
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 11/63 Electronic processing
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2110/10 Temperature
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2120/00 Control inputs relating to users or occupants
• CPC Class Codes: F24F 2120/10 Occupancy

Abstract

Disclosed is an air conditioner provided with a spatial recognition and detection function for deciding the room shape by integrally determining based on a temperature difference (the temperature unevenness) information between the floor and the walls occurring during the air conditioning operation, a human body detection position log, and a capacity zone of the air conditioner. The air conditioner of the present invention provides an infrared sensor and a control unit that controls the air conditioner by detecting a presence of heat generating device and human with the infrared sensor, wherein the control unit acquires a thermal image data of the room by scanning with the infrared sensor, and integrates three information indicated below to calculate a floor dimension inside the air conditioning area, and calculates the wall position within the air conditioning area on the thermal image data.

• (1) a room shape having the initial setting value and the shape limitation value calculated based on the capacity zone of the air conditioner and the remote controller installation position button setting;
• (2) a room shape calculated based on the temperature unevenness of the floor and wall occurring during the operation of the air conditioner; and
• (3) a room shape calculated based on the human body detection position log.

Claims

1. An air conditioner, comprising:

a substantially box-shaped main body having an air suction port that sucks air of a room and an air outlet port that discharges conditioned air;

an infrared sensor attached to a front of the main body at a prescribed downwardly facing depression angle that detects a temperature of a temperature detection target by scanning a temperature detection target area from right to left; and

a control unit that controls the air conditioner by detecting a presence of human or heat generating device with the infrared sensor; and

wherein the control unit acquires a thermal image data of the room by scanning with the infrared sensor, calculates on the thermal image data a floor dimension of an air conditioning area by integrating three information indicated below, and calculates wall positions in the air conditioning area on the thermal image data.

(1) a room shape having a shape limitation value and an initial setting value, which is calculated based on a capacity zone of the air conditioner and a remote controller installation position button setting;

(2) a room shape calculated based on a temperature unevenness of the floor and walls occurring during an operation of the air conditioner; and

(3) a room shape calculated based on a human body detection position log.

2. The air conditioner according to claim 1, wherein the control unit validates “

(2) a room shape calculated based on a temperature unevenness of the floor and walls occurring during an operation of the air conditioner”

when a number of detection times is greater than a prescribed number of threshold times, validates “

(3) a room shape calculated based on a human body detection position log”

when a number of human body detection position log times accumulating a human body position log is greater than a prescribed number of threshold times, calculates the floor dimension of the air conditioning area by integrating the three information, and calculates the wall positions in the air conditioning area on the thermal image data, in accordance to the following conditions;

A. When both (2) and (3) are invalid, “

(1) a room shape having a shape limitation value and an initial setting value, which is calculated based on a capacity zone of the air conditioner and a remote controller installation position button setting”

is taken as the room shape;

B. When (2) is valid and (3) is invalid, an output result of (2) is taken as the room shape;

C. When (2) is invalid and (3) is valid, an output result of (3) is taken as the room shape;

D. When both (2) and (3) are valid, the room shape of (2) is taken as a standard.

3. The air conditioner according to claim 2, as for “

B”

when the output result of (2) does not fit into vertical and horizontal lengths determined in (1), or does not fit into an area determined in (1), then it is enlarged or decreased to fit into a range of (1).

4. The air conditioner according to claim 3, when enlarging or decreasing based on the area, a distance to a frontal wall of the room is corrected.

5. The air conditioner according to claim 2, as for “

D”

when the room shape based on “

(3) a room shape calculated based on the human body detection position log”

has a narrower distance to the wall, the output of the room shape of (2) is corrected by narrowing to a maximum breadth of no more than 0.5 mm.

6. The air conditioner according to claim 1, wherein the control unit generates a temperature data of the floor and each wall based on the thermal image data by projecting in reverse on the thermal image data each coordinate point on a floor boundary line calculated based on the wall position within the air conditioning area on the thermal image data and the floor dimension within the air conditioning area calculated by integrating the three information, and calculates a radiation temperature of the human body based on the temperature data.

7. The air conditioner according to claim 6, wherein the calculation for each wall temperature takes an average of the temperature data calculated based on the thermal image data of each wall area calculated on the thermal image data as each wall temperature.

8. The air conditioner according to claim 6, wherein the calculation for each wall temperature divides the floor area on the thermal image data into a plurality of areas, and takes an average of the temperature data calculated based on a thermal image data of each area divided as a floor temperature of each area.

9. The air conditioner according to claim 8, wherein the floor area on the thermal image data is divided into a plurality of numbers for a horizontal direction and a depth direction, respectively.

10. The air conditioner according to claim 9, wherein the divided floor areas at front and back and right and left are overlapping with one another.

11. The air conditioner according to claim 6, wherein the radiation temperature is calculated based on each wall and floor per each human, by using an equation shown below:

12. An air conditioner, comprising:

a substantially box-shaped main body having an air suction port that sucks air of a room and an air outlet port that discharges conditioned air;

an infrared sensor attached to a front of the main body at a prescribed downwardly facing depression angle that detects a temperature of a temperature detection target by scanning a temperature detection target area from right to left; and

a control unit that controls the air conditioner by detecting a presence of human or heat generating device with the infrared sensor; and

wherein the control unit comprises;

a thermal image acquiring unit acquires a thermal image data by detecting a temperature of a temperature detection target by scanning with the infrared sensor a temperature detection target area from right to left;

a floor and wall detecting unit calculates a floor dimension of an air conditioning area by integrating three information indicated below, and acquires wall positions in the air conditioning area on the thermal image data acquired by the thermal image acquiring unit.

(1) a room shape having the initial setting value and the shape limitation value, which is calculated based on the capacity zone of the air conditioner and the remote controller installation position button setting;

(2) a room shape calculated based on the temperature unevenness of the floor and walls occurring during the operation of the air conditioner; and

(3) a room shape calculated based on a human body detection position log;

a temperature condition determining unit decides whether or not a current temperature condition requires a window state detection; and

a window condition determining unit detects an area having a prescribed temperature difference in a background thermal image as a window area, when the temperature condition determining unit determines that the detection is required.

13. The air conditioner according to claim 12, wherein the temperature condition determining unit, which comprises:

a room temperature determining unit detects an air temperature inside the room; and

an outside temperature detecting unit detects an outdoor temperature.

14. The air conditioner according to claim 12, wherein the window condition determining unit, which comprises:

a wall area temperature determining unit determines whether or not there is a temperature difference inside a wall area above a fixed value, in the background thermal image;

a wall area outside temperature area extracting unit extracts an area close to an outside temperature inside the wall area, in the background thermal image; and

a window area extracting unit extracts an area having a high probability of being the window area among areas extracted by the wall area outside temperature area extracting unit, and that detects an area that has been extracted as the window area for no less than a fixed time as the window area, in the wall area outside temperature area extracting unit.