Infrared Sensor Control in Air Conditioners for Faster Human Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing air conditioner systems experience prolonged communication times and delays in human detection information reflection due to the acquisition of thermal image data from multiple thermal-image acquisition elements, leading to reduced responsiveness.
Innovation Solution
The air conditioner system includes an indoor device with an infrared sensor unit and a control unit that scans a scanning area step-by-step, determines communication errors, and sets elements with repeated errors as communication-error established elements, thereby discarding their data to reduce communication time and improve 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 is obtained, but communication time becomes long and responsiveness is delayed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and identifies communication-error established elements from the thermal-image acquisition elements by monitoring communication errors across multiple scanning steps. Once an element is identified as having persistent communication errors (established element), it is excluded from subsequent data acquisition processes. This extraction of problematic elements reduces the number of elements requiring communication, thereby shortening communication time while maintaining data reliability from functional elements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary identification of communication-error established elements during initial scanning steps before full thermal image acquisition begins. By detecting communication errors in advance and establishing which elements are unreliable, the system prepares a reduced set of functional elements for subsequent acquisition, preventing wasted communication attempts on failed elements and reducing overall communication time.
2Reliability
If communication retries are performed for elements with communication errors, then data acquisition reliability is improved, but communication time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the harmful effect of communication errors into a beneficial identification mechanism. By monitoring and counting communication errors for each thermal-image acquisition element, the system transforms failed communications into useful information that identifies unreliable elements. This allows the system to exclude these elements from future acquisition, turning what was previously a reliability problem into a time-saving feature by preventing repeated failed retry attempts.
Solution Approach 2:
The control unit acts as an intermediary that monitors communication between the sensor control unit and thermal-image acquisition elements. It counts communication errors for each element and identifies established error elements, serving as a mediator that decides which elements should be included or excluded from data acquisition based on their communication reliability history, thereby optimizing the balance between reliability and communication time.
3Reliability
If alternative data is buffered for elements with communication errors, then thermal image can be created, but communication complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies discarding by excluding data from communication-error established elements from acquisition processes. Instead of buffering alternative data or attempting complex recovery mechanisms for failed elements, the system simply discards attempts to acquire data from identified problematic elements. This reduces data management complexity while maintaining sufficient thermal image quality through data from reliable elements.
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 control based on thermal image data by discarding data from error-prone elements and focusing on reliable 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
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AI summary
To provide an air conditioner 1 that includes an outdoor device 10 and an indoor device 20 and performs air conditioning inside a room. The indoor device 20 includes a control unit 25, a storage unit 26, and an infrared sensor unit 30 that detects a human by detecting infrared rays. The infrared sensor unit 30 includes thermal-image acquisition elements 331 to 33n that detect infrared rays to acquire thermal image data, and a sensor control unit 34 that controls the thermal-image acquisition elements 331 to 33n. At a time of reception of the thermal image data transmitted from the infrared sensor unit 30, the control unit 25 determines whether an error has been occurred in communication for each of the thermal-image acquisition elements 331 to 33n. The control unit 25 sets a thermal-image acquisition element whose sum of number of times of determination that an error has occurred in the communication is equal to or larger than a certain number, as a communication-error established element. The control unit 25 performs setting of not acquiring the thermal image data from the thermal-image acquisition element set as the communication-error established element.