Refrigerator Camera Vertical Positioning for Clear Shelf Imaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional refrigerators with moving cameras suffer from image blurring and distortion, making it difficult to accurately capture the storage state inside the refrigerator, especially on the innermost side of shelf plates, due to the camera's fixed speed movement and timing issues.
Innovation Solution
A refrigerator system with a camera moving device that stops and positions the camera vertically between shelf plates and the top edge of the refrigerator, allowing it to take clear images at specific points, reducing blurring and distortion, and using a smaller number of cameras to capture the entire storage area effectively.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If the camera moves at a fixed speed from the upper end to the lower end of the moving range, then the camera can cover the entire storeroom area, but image blurring occurs and the image quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The camera's movement path is segmented into multiple stopping points between adjacent shelf plates. The camera moves vertically and stops at predetermined positions to capture images sequentially, rather than moving continuously. This segmentation allows each image to be captured clearly while collectively covering the entire storeroom area.
Solution Approach 2:
The camera performs periodic stopping actions during its vertical movement. It moves to a stopping point, stops to capture an image, then moves to the next stopping point. This periodic stop-move-capture cycle ensures clear images are obtained at multiple locations without requiring the camera to remain stationary throughout.
2Ease of operation
If the camera takes images at fixed timing during movement, then the imaging process is simple, but distortion occurs and food items may be hidden
Solution Approach 1:
The stopping points for the camera are predetermined in advance based on the positions of shelf plates. The camera control system knows exactly where to stop and when to capture images before the imaging process begins. This preliminary planning ensures that images are captured at optimal positions where food items are fully visible and undistorted.
3Measurement precision
If multiple cameras are used to capture the innermost side of shelf plates, then image coverage is improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of adding more cameras to achieve coverage of the innermost shelf areas, the solution moves the existing camera in the vertical dimension. By positioning the camera at different vertical heights (stopping points) between shelf plates, the system captures images of the innermost areas from multiple vertical perspectives, achieving complete coverage with a single camera.
Data Source
AI summary
A refrigerator includes: a main body having a storeroom for storing a food item; a shelf plate arranged in a storeroom, the shelf plate on which a food item is put; a door that opens and closes a side of the storeroom; a camera arranged on an inner surface of the door, the camera takes an image of an inside of the storeroom; a camera moving device that moves the camera in a vertical direction. The camera moving device stops the camera at one or more points for each of between the shelf plates located adjacent to each other, and between an inner surface of a top edge of the storeroom and the shelf plate located adjacent to the inner surface of the top edge of the storeroom, and the camera takes an image each time when the camera moving device stops moving the camera.