Air conditioner
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing air conditioners with infrared sensor units face long communication times and delays in reflecting human detection information due to the need to acquire thermal image data from multiple elements, leading to reduced responsiveness.
Innovation Solution
An air conditioner system that includes an indoor device with a plurality of thermal-image acquisition elements, a sensor control unit, and a control unit that determines communication errors among these elements, allowing only error-free data to be used for thermal image creation, thereby reducing communication time and improving responsiveness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If thermal image data is acquired from all thermal-image acquisition elements, then complete thermal image data can be obtained, but communication time becomes long and responsiveness deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and identifies communication-error established elements from the thermal-image acquisition elements by monitoring communication errors across multiple acquisition cycles. Once an element is identified as having established communication errors, it is excluded from subsequent data acquisition processes, thereby reducing communication time while maintaining data reliability from functional elements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary identification of communication-error established elements through initial communication attempts and error tracking. By pre-identifying faulty elements before full thermal image acquisition, the system avoids unnecessary communication with defective elements, thus reducing overall communication time while ensuring complete data collection from operational elements.
2Reliability
If communication retries are performed for elements with errors, then more thermal image data can be acquired, but communication time increases and responsiveness decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic communication strategy where the system adapts its acquisition approach based on real-time communication error patterns. Elements are dynamically classified as communication-error established elements when error thresholds are exceeded, and the acquisition process dynamically adjusts to exclude these elements, optimizing the balance between data completeness and responsiveness.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of communication attempt limits by establishing a threshold-based criterion for identifying communication-error established elements. Instead of fixed retry counts for all elements, the system adapts the acquisition strategy by parameterizing the error tolerance and automatically adjusting which elements are included in subsequent acquisitions based on their error history.
3Measurement precision
If all thermal image data is buffered and processed, then complete thermal images can be created, but processing time increases and control responsiveness is delayed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and excludes data from communication-error established elements from the buffering and processing pipeline. By removing defective data sources before processing, the system reduces the volume of data requiring buffering and processing while maintaining the quality of thermal images through inclusion of data from reliable elements only.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary filtering of thermal image data by identifying and excluding communication-error established elements before the main processing stage. This preliminary action reduces the data volume that needs to be buffered and processed, thereby decreasing processing time while preserving image quality through selective data inclusion.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach reduces communication time with the infrared sensor unit and enhances the responsiveness of the air conditioner's control system by discarding data from elements with communication errors and focusing on error-free data acquisition.
Implementation Method 1
an infrared sensor unit that has a plurality of thermal-image acquisition elements and a sensor control unit that controls the thermal-image acquisition elements
Data Source
AI summary
An air conditioner includes an outdoor device and an indoor device. The indoor device includes a control unit, a storage unit, and an infrared sensor unit that detects a human by detecting infrared rays. The infrared sensor unit includes thermal-image acquisition elements that detect infrared rays to acquire thermal image data and a sensor control unit that controls the thermal-image acquisition elements. When receiving the thermal image data from the infrared sensor unit, the control unit determines whether a communication error has occurred in each of the thermal-image acquisition elements. The control unit sets a thermal-image acquisition element that has a number of error determinations equal to or larger than a certain number as a communication-error established element. The control unit does not acquire thermal image data from the communication-error established element.