Inventory management system in a refrigerator appliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional refrigerator appliances struggle to accurately monitor and manage inventory due to difficulties in identifying objects, distinguishing between similar products, and determining the location of items within the chilled chamber, leading to inefficiencies in reordering and maintaining food freshness.
Innovation Solution
An audiovisual input assembly, comprising cameras and microphones, is integrated into the refrigerator to obtain video and audio streams, which are analyzed independently and cross-referenced to generate accurate inventory changes, ensuring that modifications to the inventory list are made only when both streams match, thereby improving confidence in tracking items added or removed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a camera system is used to monitor food items, then inventory monitoring capability is provided, but object identification accuracy deteriorates due to difficulty in distinguishing similar products and determining precise locations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple sensing modalities (visual cameras, audio microphones, weight sensors) into an integrated inventory monitoring system. The camera captures visual information about food items, while microphones capture audio cues like container placement sounds, and weight sensors detect mass changes. By merging these complementary data sources, the system overcomes the limitations of camera-only systems and achieves more accurate object identification and location determination.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces audio signals as an intermediary to bridge the gap between visual detection and inventory verification. Audio cues from container placement, door opening/closing, and item handling provide temporal and contextual information that helps disambiguate visual data. This intermediary audio modality enables the system to distinguish between similar-looking products and determine precise inventory changes with higher confidence.
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional camera systems are used, then basic inventory monitoring is achieved, but reliability deteriorates due to inability to confidently distinguish between similar products
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where audio signals provide verification feedback to the visual inventory detection system. When the camera detects a potential inventory change, the system analyzes audio cues from the same time period to confirm or refute the detection. This feedback loop increases reliability by cross-validating visual detections with independent audio evidence, reducing false positives and improving confidence in inventory tracking.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a multi-functional sensing system where the same audiovisual input assembly serves multiple purposes: visual cameras identify food item appearance and location, audio microphones detect container placement and handling events, and weight sensors verify inventory mass changes. This universal system handles diverse inventory monitoring tasks (identification, location, quantity verification) with a single integrated approach, improving overall reliability through functional redundancy.
3Device complexity
If only visual monitoring is used, then system simplicity is maintained, but measurement precision deteriorates due to difficulty in determining precise object locations and identifying similar items
Solution Approach 1:
The patent adds the audio dimension to the traditional two-dimensional visual monitoring system. Audio signals provide a temporal and spatial dimension that complements visual data, enabling precise determination of event timing and location. For example, audio cues indicate when containers are placed on specific shelves, providing temporal precision that enhances the spatial information from cameras without significantly increasing system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A refrigerator appliance is provided including a cabinet defining a chilled chamber, a door rotatably hinged to the cabinet to provide selective access to the chilled chamber, and an audiovisual input assembly for monitoring the chilled chamber. A controller obtains a video stream and an audio stream using the audiovisual input assembly and analyzes these streams using a standard object weighting to generate a video-based inventory change and an audio-based inventory change. An inventory list is updated if the video-based inventory change and the audio-based inventory change match. Otherwise, the controller can reanalyze the streams using an updated object weighting to see if the audio and video streams generate matching proposed inventory changes.