EP0805319B1

Refrigerator with velocity control of ventilation fan and direction control of rotary blade air damper valve, and method of making the same

Abstract

This record has no abstract on file.

EP0805319B1, drawing sheet 1
Sheet 1 of 53

Term

Term ended

Expired 29 April 2017, 9.4 years ago.

  1. Priority
  2. Filed
  3. Granted
  4. Expired
  5. Today

13 claims: 2 independent, 11 dependent

  1. 1
    A method of making a refrigerator having a refrigeration compartment (10), a ventilation fan (30) for driving cooling air into the refrigeration compartment (10), a rotary blade (20) for discharging cooling air being driven into the refrigeration compartment in different directions and two wall-mounted temperature sensors (11, 12) in the refrigeration compartment (10), the method comprising:- generating a fuzzy model inferring temperatures of a plurality of portions in the compartment (10) using the temperature sensed by said sensors (11, 12);training a neural network using said fuzzy model in order to correct the temperatures inferred by the fuzzy model and determine more accurately the portion in the compartment (10) with the highest temperature;and implementing the neural network in a control system (31) for the ventilation fan (30) and rotary blade (20) said control system controlling the rotation velocity of the fan (30) and the stop angle (θ) of the rotary blade (20) so as to target cooling air on the location of the current highest temperature point in the refrigerator's refrigeration compartment (10).
  2. 8
    A refrigerator comprising:a refrigeration compartment (10);a ventilation fan (30) for driving cooling air into the refrigeration compartment (10);a rotary blade (20) for discharging cooling air being driven into the refrigeration compartment in different directions;a control system (31) for the ventilation fan (30) and rotary blade (20), said control system controlling the rotation velocity of the fan (30) and the stop angle (θ) of the rotary blade (20);and two wall-mounted temperature sensors (11, 12) in the refrigeration compartment (10),    wherein the control system (31) comprises a neural network for controlling said fan (30) and said blade (20) so as to target cooling air on the location of the current highest temperature point in the refrigerator's refrigeration compartment (10), the neural network providing an implementation of a fuzzy model inferring temperatures of a plurality of portions in the compartment (10) using the temperatures sensed by said sensors (11, 12), and the neural network having been trained using said fuzzy model in order to correct the temperatures inferred by the fuzzy model and determine more accurately the portion in the compartment (10) with the highest temperature.
  3. 13
    A refrigerator according to any one of claims 8 to 12, wherein the control system (31) is configured to determine the difference between the desired angular position of the rotary blade (20), as established by the output of the neural network, and the actual angular position of the rotary blade (20), and control the rotary blade (20) in dependence thereon so as to alter the angular position of the rotary blade so as to direct cooling air to the location with the highest temperature.