Touchscreen Wine Refrigerator Door for Fast Bottle Identification
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Solution Overview
Problem
The inefficiency in locating specific items within large collections, such as wine bottles, stored in controlled environments, where traditional methods require opening the storage door and physically searching, leading to time wastage and inefficiency in maintaining ambient conditions.
Innovation Solution
An inventory management system integrated into a storage appliance, like a wine refrigerator, featuring a touch-sensitive door panel that detects tactile inputs and displays identification information about the items, allowing users to quickly identify bottles without opening the door, and a linked mobile application for reverse lookup and real-time inventory management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If wine bottles are stored lying down in a rack system for preservation, then the collection is preserved in controlled environment, but locating a specific bottle requires lifting and moving bottles which is time consuming
Solution Approach 1:
A camera is positioned to photograph the labels of wine bottles stored in the rack. The camera captures images of the labels, which are then transmitted to a remote device, allowing the user to view label information without physically handling the bottles.
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanical action of lifting and moving bottles to read labels is replaced by an automated imaging system. The camera automatically photographs the labels and transmits the images electronically, substituting the manual mechanical search process with an automated optical and electronic system.
2Ease of operation
If the door is opened to locate a specific bottle, then the bottle can be identified and removed, but the controlled storage environment is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The camera acts as an intermediary that provides visual access to bottle labels through the closed door. Users can view label information on their remote devices without opening the door, eliminating the need to compromise the temperature-controlled environment.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of directly viewing the actual bottle labels by opening the door, the system creates digital copies of the labels through camera photographs. These copied images are transmitted to remote devices, allowing users to access label information as copies without physical access to the bottles or opening the door.
3Quantity of substance
If the collection of wine becomes larger, then more inventory is stored, but the time and effort to locate a specific item increases
Solution Approach 1:
The manual mechanical process of searching through bottles is replaced by an automated camera system that photographs all visible labels. The images are transmitted electronically to remote devices, allowing users to search through digital images much faster than physically handling bottles, even in large collections.
Solution Approach 2:
The camera and communication system serve as intermediaries that provide remote access to label information. This allows users to search for and identify bottles in large collections without increasing the physical search effort, as all label information is made accessible through the intermediary imaging system.
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
Enables quick and efficient identification of stored items, reducing search time and maintaining controlled environment integrity by allowing tactile access to information without opening the door, and providing comprehensive inventory management features through connected devices.
Implementation Method 1
The panel may comprise a number of different functional elements, one of which may be a touch-sensitive overlay
Data Source
AI summary
An inventory management system suited to provide inventory information for items in the inventory based upon a position in the system. In an embodiment, the inventory being kept track of is a wine collection and the system for managing the inventory may be a wine refrigerator with several storage positions in a refrigerated cavity accessible by a door. The door may be a clear panel having functionality to detect a tactile input on the panel as well as configured to display information about one or more inventory items in response to the tactile input. Thus, as a person may touch a particular portion of the panel, the panel senses the touch and then triggers display of specific information about the particular wine that is closest to where the touch was detected. That is, a person may touch the panel on the closed door near a bottle of wine to trigger a display of the corresponding bottle of wine.