Smart air conditioner upgrade kit and control method thereof

Abstract

The application provides a smart air conditioner upgrading kit and a control method thereof, the smart air conditioner upgrading kit comprising: a smart baffle and a fixing part (20); the smart baffle is connected with the fixing part (20) and is installed at an air outlet of an air conditioner through the fixing part (20); the smart baffle comprises: a power supply (11), a visual detection device (12), a control device (13), a baffle driving device (14), a baffle (15) and a mounting bracket (16); the power supply, the control device, the baffle driving device and the visual detection device are mounted on the mounting bracket; the control device is electrically connected with the power supply, the baffle driving device and the visual detection device respectively; the baffle is mounted on the baffle driving device and is used for changing the wind direction of the air outlet of the air conditioner. Each baffle in the application can rotate to the air conditioner baffle in different directions, and the baffle is combined with machine vision to rotate according to the position of a person in a room, so that the harm of direct blowing of the air conditioner to the human body is avoided.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the field of air conditioning technology, and in particular to an intelligent air conditioning upgrade kit and its control method. Background Technology

[0002] As global warming intensifies and summers become increasingly hot, people often run their air conditioners all day long. Current air conditioners primarily regulate airflow direction, intensity, and humidity through pre-set modes, and cannot intelligently track and dynamically adjust based on human activity levels.

[0003] In daily life, it's common to experience headaches from being directly exposed to air conditioning. The built-in left / right airflow adjustment of air conditioners is fixed and cannot prevent this from happening. While adjusting the up / down airflow can avoid this, it doesn't achieve a good cooling effect. Currently, although other smart air conditioners can intelligently control the airflow direction, most of these involve adding software control systems within the air conditioner rather than upgrading the hardware. Furthermore, most of them use infrared cameras for location tracking rather than machine vision.

[0004] Therefore, there is an urgent need for an intelligent air conditioning upgrade kit and its control method to solve the above problems. Summary of the Invention

[0005] The technical problem solved by this invention is to provide an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit and its control method, which can avoid the harm to human health caused by direct air conditioning blowing.

[0006] The technical problem solved by this invention is achieved by the following technical solution:

[0007] A smart air conditioner upgrade kit includes: a smart baffle and a fixing part; the smart baffle is connected to the fixing part and installed at the air outlet of the air conditioner through the fixing part; the smart baffle includes: a power supply, a control device, a baffle driving device, a vision detection device, the baffle, and a mounting bracket; the power supply, control device, baffle driving device, and vision detection device are mounted on the mounting bracket; the control device is electrically connected to the power supply, the baffle driving device, and the vision detection device respectively; the baffle is installed on the baffle driving device and is used to change the airflow direction of the air outlet of the air conditioner.

[0008] In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the baffle driving device includes a rotary driver and a chassis; the rotary driver includes a rotary driver body and at least one connecting part, the rotary driver body being used to drive the connecting part to rotate.

[0009] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the bottom of the baffle bottom plate is provided with a groove with the same shape as the connecting part, so that the connecting part is fixedly installed in the groove of the baffle bottom plate.

[0010] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the baffle bottom plate comprises a first rotating layer and a second rotating layer, which are stacked one above another and connected with the rotating driver respectively, and the side wall of the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer is provided with the baffle.

[0011] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the baffle bottom plate further comprises a baffle mounting groove, which is a strip-shaped groove penetrating through the top of the baffle bottom plate.

[0012] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the mounting bracket comprises a rotating driver mounting position and at least one connecting part, the rotating driver is installed in the rotating driver mounting position, and the at least one connecting part is connected with the fixed part respectively.

[0013] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the top of the baffle bottom plate is in contact with the bottom of the air conditioner air outlet, the top end of the baffle is in contact with the top of the air conditioner air outlet, and the baffle is in L-shaped or convex structure.

[0014] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the visual detection device comprises a camera unit, a processing unit and a display unit, the camera unit is used for collecting image information in real time, the processing unit is used for processing the image information collected by the camera unit, and the display unit is used for image display and algorithm debugging.

[0015] The control method of the intelligent air conditioner upgrading kit is applied to the intelligent air conditioner upgrading kit as described in any of the above, and comprises the following steps: acquiring real-time image information; acquiring a target person in a current space according to the image information; confirming position information of the target person according to the image information; and controlling at least one baffle to rotate according to the position of the target person.

[0016] In the preferable embodiment of the present application, the step of confirming the position information of the target person according to the image information comprises the following steps: acquiring size information of the target person image in the image information; and not adjusting the rotation angle of the baffle when the size information is less than a threshold value.

[0017] The technical effects achieved by the technical scheme are that each baffle can rotate in different directions, and the baffle can rotate according to the position of a person in a room by combining machine vision, so that the harm of direct blowing of the air conditioner to the human body is avoided, and most of the existing installed air conditioners can be upgraded without replacing the air conditioner.

[0018] The above description is only a summary of the technical scheme of the present application, in order to enable the technical means of the present application to be more clearly understood, and to be implemented according to the content of the specification, and in order to enable the above and other purposes, characteristics and advantages of the present application to be more apparent and easy to understand, the following preferred embodiments are described in detail, and the accompanying drawings are described in detail. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0019] Figure 1 A structural schematic diagram of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application is shown in the figure.

[0020] Figure 2 A structural schematic diagram of a baffle driving device in an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application is shown in the figure.

[0021] Figure 3 A flow chart of a control method of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application is shown in the figure.

[0022] Figure 4 A program schematic diagram of a control method of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application is shown in the figure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0023] In order to further illustrate the technical means and effects adopted by the present application to achieve the predetermined purpose, the embodiments of the present application are described in detail below, and the examples of the embodiments are shown in the accompanying drawings, wherein the same or similar reference numerals represent the same or similar elements or elements having the same or similar functions throughout. The embodiments described below are only a part of the embodiments of the present application, not all the embodiments. Based on the embodiments in the present application, all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without creative labor fall within the scope of protection of the embodiments of the present application. Through the description of the specific embodiments, the technical means and effects adopted by the present application to achieve the predetermined purpose can be more deeply and specifically understood, and the accompanying drawings are only provided for reference and description, and are not used to limit the present application.

[0024] The application designs several individual adjustable left and right direction or 360 rotation baffles for the air conditioner, then monitors the position of the person in the room through a camera and other equipment, and then adjusts the direction of the baffle in real time according to the position of the person to change the air direction of the air outlet of the air conditioner, so that the wind always does not blow on the person, and at the same time, other positions are blown as much as possible to keep the overall temperature in the room at a suitable temperature, thereby avoiding the headache problem caused by the air conditioner blowing on the person.

[0025] Please refer to Figure 1 and Figure 2 , Figure 1 The structure diagram of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit is shown in the application, Figure 2 The structure diagram of a baffle driving device in the intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit is shown in the application.

[0026] As Figure 1 shown, the application comprises an intelligent baffle (not shown in the figure) and a fixed part (20); the intelligent baffle is connected with the fixed part (20) and is installed on the air outlet of an air conditioner (for example, a wall-mounted air conditioner) through the fixed part (20). Wherein, the intelligent baffle comprises a power supply (11), a visual detection device (12), a control device (13), a baffle driving device (14), a baffle (15) and a mounting bracket (16). The power supply (11), the control device (13), the baffle driving device (14) and the visual detection device (12) are installed on the mounting bracket (16); the control device (13) is electrically connected with the power supply (11), the baffle driving device (14) and the visual detection device (12) respectively; the baffle (15) is installed on the baffle driving device (14) and is used for changing the air direction of the air outlet of the air conditioner.

[0027] Exemplarily, the power supply (11) can adopt a battery, a mobile power supply or be directly connected with the mains through a plug, etc. The visual detection device (12) adopts a Sentry2 visual sensor / Sentry2 edge artificial intelligence module; the control device (13) adopts an arduino mainboard and an expansion board. The baffle (15) can be an L-shaped structure and a linear structure, etc.

[0028] Wherein, after the intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit is assembled, the arduino mainboard and the expansion board can realize the common rotation and the separate rotation control of multiple servos (the number of servos can be adaptively changed according to the length of the air outlet) through the modular design program Mixly programming and parallel adjustment of a PC.

[0029] Optionally, the baffle driving device (14) comprises a rotary driver (152) and a baffle chassis (151); the rotary driver (152) comprises a rotary driver body and at least one connecting part, and the rotary driver body is used for driving the connecting part to rotate.

[0030] Optionally, the bottom of the baffle bottom plate (151) is provided with a groove with the same shape as the connecting part, so that the connecting part is fixedly installed in the groove of the baffle bottom plate (151).

[0031] Optionally, the baffle bottom plate (151) further comprises a baffle mounting groove; the baffle mounting groove is provided on the top of the baffle bottom plate (151) and is a strip-shaped groove penetrating through the top of the baffle bottom plate (151).

[0032] Exemplarily, the rotary driver (152) can be a steering engine and a stepping motor, etc. The steering engine and the like rotate at different angles in the left and right directions by receiving the control instructions of the control device (13) (for example, an arduino board). The steering engine comprises a steering engine body and a connecting part connected with the baffle bottom plate (151). The shape of the connecting part can be but is not limited to a hexagonal star shape, and can also be a cross shape, a straight line shape, etc., which is not limited here. Please refer to Figure 1 and Figure 2 The baffle bottom plate (151) is cut into a hexagonal shape on one side to be connected with the steering engine, and is used for mounting the baffle (15) on the other side. A groove with the same shape and size as the connecting part on the steering engine is designed on the bottom of the baffle bottom plate (151), so that the connecting part is perfectly embedded. An installation groove is designed on the top of the baffle bottom plate (151), and the baffle (15) is embedded in the installation groove to achieve the purpose of being fixedly installed on the baffle bottom plate (151). When the steering engine receives instructions to rotate to the left or to the right by a predetermined angle, the baffle bottom plate (151) is driven to rotate left and right correspondingly through the connecting part, so that the baffle (15) installed thereon rotates left and right. In an embodiment, a through hole is further provided in the center of the baffle bottom plate (151), and the baffle bottom plate (151) and the connecting part of the steering engine can be fixed by installing a screw in the through hole.

[0033] Optionally, the baffle bottom plate (151) comprises a first rotating layer and a second rotating layer; the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer are stacked one above the other and are respectively connected with the rotary driver (152); the side walls of the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer are respectively provided with the baffle (15).

[0034] Exemplarily, the baffle bottom plate (151) is designed as a structure in which the upper and lower layers can be rotated separately, under which structure the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer are respectively connected with different steering engines, so as to realize the separate control of the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer. In an embodiment, the side wall of the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer is provided with a mounting hole; the baffle (15) comprises a baffle body and a mounting portion; the mounting portion is embedded in the mounting hole provided in the side wall of the first rotating layer and the second rotating layer, so as to realize fixed installation. The number of steering engines required in this embodiment is larger, but the control effect is more accurate.

[0035] The hardware of the intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit in this embodiment takes an arduino board as the master control, and a plurality of steering engines (for example, 8) are connected to eight digital output holes on the arduino board; the arduino board can receive information instructions of an AI module (for example, a Sentry2 edge artificial intelligence module) through modules such as Bluetooth and I / O port, which is convenient and fast and can be used in various stages of research and development.

[0036] Optionally, the mounting bracket (16) comprises a rotating driver mounting position (161) and at least one connecting piece (162); the rotating driver (152) is mounted in the rotating driver mounting position (161); and the at least one connecting piece (162) is respectively connected with one of the fixing portions (20).

[0037] Exemplarily, the mounting bracket (16) is provided with a plurality of steering engine mounting positions for mounting rotating drivers (152) such as steering engines, and the interval distance between the steering engines is related to the length of the installed baffle (15). Generally, the longer the length of the baffle (15) is, the greater the interval distance between the two steering engines is, but in order to improve the control accuracy, the interval distance between the steering engines is generally set to 5-10 cm. The mounting bracket (16) is also provided with mounting positions or fixing positions of the power supply (11), the visual detection device (12) and the control device (13). For example, a plurality of mounting holes are provided on the mounting bracket (16), and then the battery, the Sentry2 visual sensor and the arduino mainboard and other devices are fixed on the mounting bracket by using nuts and screws.

[0038] In an embodiment, the original air outlet baffle of the air conditioner is directly used as the mounting bracket (16), the steering engine, the baffle bottom plate (151) and the baffle and other devices are installed on the upper surface of the air outlet baffle, and the power supply (11) and the arduino board and other devices are fixed below the air outlet baffle by punching and screwing.

[0039] In the process of assembling the baffle bottom plate (151), the baffle (15) and the rudder with the air outlet baffle of the original air conditioner, in order to avoid the device being too high and causing the device to be unable to be connected with the air conditioner, two or three (one is arranged on each side, or one is arranged on each side and the center of the device) hooks are added to connect the air conditioner and the device, so as to increase the distance between the air conditioner and the device.

[0040] Optionally, the top of the baffle bottom plate (151) is in contact with the bottom of the air conditioner air outlet, the top end of the baffle (15) is in contact with the top of the air conditioner air outlet, and the baffle (15) is L-shaped or convex.

[0041] Illustratively, the height of the baffle (15) is slightly lower than the height of the air conditioner air outlet, so as to avoid the situation that the baffle (15) cannot change the wind direction of the unshielded area. Therefore, in the case that the top of the baffle bottom plate (151) is in contact with the bottom of the air conditioner air outlet, the baffle (15) needs to be designed as L-shaped or convex, so that one end of the baffle (15) can extend into the air outlet of the air conditioner, and in order to ensure that the wind direction of the air outlet can be controlled by rotating the baffle (15), the height of the baffle (15) is only slightly lower than the height of the air conditioner air outlet.

[0042] Optionally, the visual detection device (12) comprises a camera unit, a processing unit and a display unit; the camera unit is used to collect real-time image information; the processing unit is used to process the image information collected by the camera unit; and the display unit is used for image display and algorithm debugging.

[0043] The camera unit is used to collect real-time image information; the processing unit detects the image through a position detection algorithm to determine the position of the person in the space relative to the baffle (15); and the display unit is used to display algorithm state, system state and personnel image information. For example, the Sentry2 visual sensor captures the position information of the person in the current space relative to the baffle (15) and sends it to the arduino mainboard. The arduino mainboard receives the position information and controls the rotation of the corresponding rudder after position conversion, so as to realize the purpose of the baffle (15) rotating in time according to the position of the person to block the wind for the person.

[0044] The visual detection device (12) is a Sentry2 visual sensor. The Sentry2 visual sensor is developed and designed by using an advanced 64-bit RISC-V neural network processor K210, integrates various advanced offline visual processing algorithms, and can meet basic visual processing requirements. The ESP8285-WiFi chip carried can be directly programmed and developed through Arduino, realizes cloud image recognition, wireless image transmission, AIoT Internet of Things and other applications. The ESP8285-WiFi chip can be used as a coprocessor of the K210, and AI programming learning can be performed without external host.

[0045] Each baffle (15) in the intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit can rotate in different directions respectively, and machine vision is combined, so that the baffle (15) can rotate according to the position of the person in the room, avoiding the harm of air conditioning direct blowing to human health; and the intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit can upgrade most existing air conditioners that cannot intelligently control the air direction without replacing the air conditioner.

[0046] Please refer to Figure 3 and Figure 4 , Figure 3 a flow chart of a control method of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application, Figure 4 a program schematic diagram of a control method of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit shown by the present application.

[0047] As Figure 3 shown, the present application further provides a control method of an intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit, which is applied to the above-mentioned intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit and comprises the following steps:

[0048] S11: acquiring real-time image information.

[0049] S12: acquiring a target person in a current space according to the image information.

[0050] S13: confirming position information of the target person according to the image information.

[0051] S14: controlling at least one baffle to rotate according to the position of the target person.

[0052] Optionally, the step of confirming the position information of the target person according to the image information comprises the following steps: acquiring size information of a target person image in the image information; when the size information is less than a threshold value, the rotation angle of the baffle is not adjusted.

[0053] Generally, when the camera does not zoom, the farther the distance from the camera, the smaller the image.

[0054] The embodiment finds the position of the person near the air conditioner by using wide-angle camera, target recognition algorithm, Sentry2 module of RISC-V based K210 edge computing chip and other artificial intelligence technologies, and then drives the steering engine and baffle to rotate different angles of one, multiple or each baffle, so that a part of the baffle blocks or deviates from the air conditioner wind directly blowing on the person, thereby achieving air conditioner wind direction control.

[0055] As shown in Figure 4 The Sentry2 sensor acquires image information in the space, and then sends the position information of the recognized person relative to the air conditioner to the arduino mainboard. After position conversion, the mainboard controls the steering engine at the corresponding position to rotate. The reading of specific position information and the conversion process of controlling the baffle: the Sentry2 visual sensor captures the x, y, w, h information of the person (for example, a coordinate system is set; the face center point, the vertical axis x value, the horizontal axis y value, the face image length h value, and the face image width w value are taken) and sends it to the arduino mainboard. The mainboard inside determines whether to rotate the baffle by judging the size of the w value (that is, if the person is too small, the person is far enough from the air conditioner and does not need to rotate; by comparing the w value with a comparison value, if the w value exceeds the comparison value, the baffle needs to be rotated, and if the w value does not exceed the comparison value, the baffle does not need to be rotated. The comparison value can be customized according to the actual situation) and calculates x divided by 40 (the x value provided by Sentry2 is 0-320, 8 steering engines are set and numbered, so dividing by 40 can divide the overall position into 8 regions, and control the rotation of 8 steering engines) to determine which steering engine to rotate.

[0056] It should be understood that although each step in the flowchart of the accompanying drawings is displayed in sequence according to the direction of the arrow, these steps are not necessarily executed in sequence according to the direction of the arrow. Unless otherwise specified herein, the execution of these steps is not strictly limited in sequence, and they can be executed in other sequences. Moreover, at least part of the steps in the accompanying drawings can include multiple sub-steps or multiple stages, which are not necessarily executed at the same time, but can be executed at different times, and the execution sequence is not necessarily sequential, but can be executed alternately or alternately with at least part of other steps or sub-steps or stages of other steps.

[0057] Those skilled in the art can clearly understand the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application through the above description of the embodiments of the present application, which can be implemented by hardware or by means of software and necessary universal hardware platform. Based on such understanding, the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present application can be embodied in the form of a software product, which can be stored in a non-volatile storage medium (which can be a CD-ROM, a U disk, a mobile hard disk, etc.), and includes a plurality of instructions for causing a computer device (which can be a personal computer, a server, or a network device, etc.) to execute the methods described in various implementation scenarios of the embodiments of the present application.

[0058] The preferred embodiments of the present application are described in detail above in combination with the drawings, but the present application is not limited to the specific details in the above-described embodiments, the above-described embodiments and the drawings are exemplary, and the modules or flows in the drawings are not necessarily required to implement the embodiments of the present application, and should not be understood as limiting the present application. Within the technical concept of the present application, various simple modifications and combinations of the technical solutions of the present application can be made, and these simple modifications and combinations all belong to the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. An intelligent air conditioner upgrade kit, characterized by, The application relates to an intelligent baffle and fixing part. The intelligent baffle is connected with the fixing part and is installed on the air outlet of an air conditioner through the fixing part. The intelligent baffle comprises a power supply, a visual detection device, a control device, a baffle driving device, a baffle and a mounting bracket. The baffle driving device comprises a rotary driver and a baffle chassis; the rotary driver comprises a rotary driver body and at least one connecting part, and the rotary driver is connected with the baffle chassis through the connecting part; the baffle chassis comprises a first rotary layer and a second rotary layer; the first rotary layer and the second rotary layer are arranged in a stacked mode and are respectively connected with different rotary drivers, and the side walls of the first rotary layer and the second rotary layer are provided with baffles. The rotary driver of the baffle driving device controls at least one baffle to rotate through the baffle chassis, so that the direction of air outlet of the air conditioner is changed, and the baffle can shield or deviate from the air conditioner air directly blowing to a person. The power supply, the control device, the baffle driving device and the visual detection device are mounted on the mounting bracket; the control device is electrically connected with the power supply, the baffle driving device and the visual detection device, and the position of a person in a space relative to the baffle is determined through the visual detection device. The rotary driver body is used for driving the connecting part to rotate.

2. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 1, wherein, The recess provided at the bottom of the baffle chassis is the same in shape with the connecting part, so that the connecting part is fixedly installed in the recess.

3. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 2, wherein, The baffle chassis further comprises a baffle mounting groove; the baffle mounting groove is a strip-shaped recess penetrating through the top of the baffle chassis.

4. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 3, wherein, The mounting bracket comprises a rotary driver mounting position and at least one connecting piece; the rotary driver is mounted in the rotary driver mounting position; and the at least one connecting piece is respectively connected with one fixing part.

5. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 2, wherein, The top of the baffle chassis is in contact with the bottom of the air outlet of the air conditioner, the top end of the baffle is in contact with the top of the air outlet of the air conditioner, and the baffle is in L-shaped or convex structure.

6. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 4, wherein, The visual detection device comprises a camera unit, a processing unit and a display unit; the camera unit is used for collecting image information in real time; the processing unit is used for processing the image information collected by the camera unit; and the display unit is used for image display and algorithm debugging.

7. The smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 1, wherein, The application relates to an intelligent baffle and fixing part. 8.A control method of a smart air conditioner upgrade kit, applied to the smart air conditioner upgrade kit according to any one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that, Real-time image information is acquired. A target person in a current space is acquired according to the image information. Position information of the target person is confirmed according to the image information. At least one baffle is controlled to rotate according to the position information of the target person. After the step of confirming the position information of the target person according to the image information, the following steps are included. 9.The control method of the smart air conditioner upgrade kit of claim 8, wherein, Size information of a target person image in the image information is acquired. When the size information is smaller than a threshold value, the rotation angle of the baffle is not adjusted. ​

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