Defrosting system and method of refrigeration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9423169-B2
Application number	US-90992110-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 22, 2010
Priority date	Oct 22, 2009
Publication date	Aug 23, 2016
Grant date	Aug 23, 2016

Abstract

Disclosed is a defrosting system and a defrosting method of a refrigerator, the system including an evaporator configured to reduce an ambient temperature by heat exchange through movement of refrigerant, a frost monitoring camera by photographing a state of frost adhered to the evaporator, a controller configured to grasp changes of an image captured by the frost monitoring camera to determine a defrosting start time, and a heat-generating unit configured to emit heat in response to a signal applied from the controller to remove the frost, whereby an unnecessary operation of a heat-generating unit is prevented by appropriately coping with an environment that flexibly changes according to an inner situation of a refrigerator and by accurately determining, by the controller, a start time and a completion time of defrosting operation for removing frost adhered to the refrigerator.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of defrosting for a refrigerator including an evaporator, the method comprising the steps of:
activating an illumination unit for photographing by a frost monitoring camera;
emitting light to a portion of the evaporator;
photographing an image of the portion of the evaporator at a time interval with the frost monitoring camera; and
determining whether a gray scale change value of the image photographed is greater than a predetermined threshold value through a controller, wherein the gray scale change value is a change value of gray scale color determined in an RGB value of the photographed image at a photograph start time as time lapses;
wherein the controller is configured to:
compare colors obtained from the photographed image of the portion of the evaporator with colors obtained from a reference image of the portion of the evaporator, wherein the reference image is an image when the camera is initiated;
determine a defrosting start time and a defrosting completion time based on the comparison of the colors, wherein a gray color, a black color, or a white color in the photographed image of the portion of the evaporator is compared with the reference image; and
operate a heat-generating unit for a defrosting operation in response to determination by the controller.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to determine the defrosting start time when:
the gray color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is greater than that of the reference image;
the black color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is less than that of the reference image; or
the white color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is greater than that of the reference image.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the controller is configured to determine the defrosting completion time when:
the gray color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is less than that of the reference image;
the black color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is greater than that of the reference image; or
the white color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is less than that of the reference image.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the heat-generating unit is a heater configured to generate heat, or a steam generator configured to inject steam.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the illumination unit is activated only for photographing by the camera and is turned off with a power-off of the camera.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising removing an embedded humidity of the frost monitoring camera or a frost generated inside the frost monitoring camera by turning on the power of the frost monitoring camera, when the power of the frost monitoring camera is turned off over a predetermined period of time.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to determine the defrosting completion time when:
the gray color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is less than that of the reference image;
the black color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is greater than that of the reference image; or
the white color in the image of the portion of the evaporator is less than that of the reference image.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the image of the portion of the evaporator includes a still image and is obtained periodically at predetermined time intervals.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the image of the portion of the evaporator includes a moving image and is obtained periodically at predetermined time intervals.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller compares a photographing start time of the frost monitoring camera with an RGB value of an image captured at a predetermined time interval to determine the defrosting start time.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller compares the defrosting start time of the heat generating unit with an RGB value of an image captured at a pre-set time interval to determine the defrosting completion time.

Assignees

• Kim Seoyoung
• Lg Innotek Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kim Seoyoung

Classifications

• F25D21/02 Primary

  Detecting the presence of frost or condensate · CPC title