JP2006329459A - refrigerator - Google Patents

Abstract

A refrigerator capable of avoiding manual input of food information and creating in-house information simply by putting food with a wireless tag attached into the refrigerator.
A front antenna 52 and a rear antenna 54 are provided in the vicinity of the opening of the refrigerator compartment 14, and when the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the front antenna 52 and the rear antenna 54, it is determined that food is stored. When the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the rear antenna 54 and the front antenna 52, it is determined that the product is carried out.
[Selection] Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a refrigerator capable of storing and managing a food provided with a wireless tag.

  Recently, wireless tag technology has advanced, and a refrigerator for home use that can store and manage foods attached with the wireless tag has been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

Such a refrigerator has a plurality of antennas for transmitting / receiving radio waves from a wireless tag attached to food, a transmission / reception unit for transmitting / receiving wireless tag information using these antennas, and for controlling the transmission / reception unit. The main controller is provided.
JP 2002-81848 A

  One of the services performed in the refrigerator as described above is a food management service. This food management service is a service in which food in the refrigerator is input in advance from a controller or the like, information input from the controller is transmitted from the home server to each user's mobile phone, and the expiration date is notified.

  However, in order to receive such a service, it is very troublesome because it is necessary to input the food name, the expiration date, and the like for the food that each user puts in the refrigerator.

  In addition, in the case of a refrigerator using a wireless tag as described above, the user often creates in-house information by passing the product with the wireless tag attached to the antenna detection range, and the detected food is actually In many cases, it is left to the user to determine whether or not it exists in the cabinet.

  Therefore, in view of the above problems, the present invention provides a refrigerator that can avoid the manual input of food information and can create in-compartment information simply by putting food with a wireless tag attached to the refrigerator.

  The present invention includes a storage room, a door that opens and closes an opening of the storage room, door opening / closing detection means that detects opening and closing of the door, an antenna for communicating with a wireless tag provided in food, and the antenna And a tag detection means for detecting RFID tag information stored in the RFID tag, wherein the antenna has a detection range in the vicinity of the opening and substantially parallel to the opening. And a rear antenna that is in the vicinity of the opening, is behind the front antenna, and has a surface that is substantially parallel to the opening. After the door opening / closing detection means detects the open state of the door, the front antenna and the rear antenna are operated, and the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the front antenna and the rear antenna. There were determined to be accommodated, upon detecting the radio tag information in the order of the rear antenna the previous antenna, the food is Refrigerators and determines that is carried out.

  In the refrigerator of the present invention, the front antenna and the rear antenna are provided in the storage room, and when the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the front antenna and the rear antenna, it can be determined that food is stored. When the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the front antenna and the front antenna, it can be determined that the product is carried out. This eliminates the need for the user to manually input food information each time a product is taken in or out.

[First Embodiment]
Hereinafter, the refrigerator 10 of the 1st Embodiment of this invention is demonstrated based on FIGS.

  The refrigerator 10 of this embodiment can read and manage the wireless tag information stored in the wireless tag 24 attached to food.

(1) Structure of refrigerator 10 The structure of the refrigerator 10 is demonstrated based on FIGS. 1-3.

  As shown in FIG. 1, a refrigerator compartment 14, a vegetable compartment 16, an ice making room 18, and a freezing room 20 are arranged in the cabinet of the refrigerator 10 from the top, and the inside temperature can be switched on the right side of the ice making room 18. A switching chamber 22 is provided.

  Inside the refrigerator compartment 14, an upper shelf 41, a middle shelf 39, and a lower shelf 38 are provided in the vertical direction. The lower shelf 38 also serves as the ceiling surface of the chilled room.

  On the ceiling surface of the cabinet 12 is provided a tag detection device 26 which is a control unit for transmitting and receiving wireless tag information from the wireless tag 24 attached to food, and on the right side from the tag detection device 26. A wireless adapter 28 for transmitting the read wireless tag information is provided.

  Inside the refrigerator compartment 14, antennas 52 to 60 for receiving the RFID tag information are provided. A front antenna 52 is provided in the vicinity of the opening of the refrigerator compartment 14, that is, at the edge of the opening of the refrigerator compartment 14. The front antenna 52 has a loop shape and is formed of a coil that goes around the ceiling surface, side surface, bottom surface, and right side surface of the refrigerator compartment 14, and provides a detection range along a plane parallel to the opening surface of the storage chamber 14. It has been. However, the depth direction of the planar detection range is small as shown in FIG.

  A rear antenna 54 is provided behind the front antenna 52. After this, the antenna 54 has a loop shape like the front antenna 52, and a detection range is provided along a plane parallel to the opening surface of the refrigerator compartment 14. The detection range in the depth direction of the rear antenna 54 is small as shown in FIG. 2 and does not overlap with the detection range in the depth direction of the front antenna 52.

  The upper shelf 41 is provided with the upper shelf antenna 56 in a planar shape, and the RFID tag information of the food placed on the upper shelf 41 can be read.

  The middle shelf 39 is provided with a middle shelf antenna 58 in a planar shape, and can transmit and receive wireless tag information of food placed on the middle shelf 39.

  The lower shelf 38 is provided with a lower shelf antenna 60 in a planar shape, and can read the RFID tag information of the food placed on the lower shelf 38 and the food in the chilled room.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the RFID tag information transmitted from the wireless adapter 28 is sent to a home server 30 which is one of external devices. The home server 30 is connected to an external information server 32 via the Internet. The information server 32 can be accessed from a mobile phone 34 owned by the user. The home server 30 includes a liquid crystal display device 62.

(2) Electrical configuration of refrigerator 10 Based on FIG. 4, the electrical configuration of the refrigerator 10 will be described.

  The control device 40 of the refrigerator 10 is a part that performs control for driving a compressor or the like in order to manage the internal temperature of the refrigerator 10 and is configured by a microcomputer. Further, a tag detection device 26 and a wireless adapter 28 are connected to the control device 40. The tag detection device 26 is connected to the front antenna 52, the rear antenna 54, the upper shelf antenna 56, the middle shelf antenna 58, and the lower shelf antenna 60 described above.

  The control device 40 is provided with door switches 42, 44, 46, 48, 50 for detecting opening and closing of the respective doors of the refrigerator compartment 14, the vegetable compartment 16, the ice making compartment 18, the freezer compartment 20, and the switching compartment 22. Yes. Based on the door opening / closing signals of the door switches 42 to 50, the control device 40 can detect which storage room door is opened and closed. The tag detection device 26 starts the operation state of each antenna 52-60 when the door switches 42-50 detect the door open state, and when the door switches 42-50 detect the door closed state. The operating state of each antenna 52-60 is stopped. This saves energy.

(3) Process at the time of taking in / out food Next, based on FIG.5 and FIG.6, the process of the refrigerator 10 at the time of taking in / out of goods is demonstrated. FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the processing, and FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing the state of taking in and out the food, showing a side view of the refrigerator compartment 14, and arrows showing the movement of the food.

  First, processing when the user stores food will be described.

  In step 1, when a user opens the door of the refrigerator compartment 14, the door switch 42 detects it and operates each antenna 52-60.

  In Step 2, when the user stores the food in the refrigerator compartment 14, the front antenna 52 near the opening receives the wireless tag information from the wireless tag 24 attached to the food.

  In step 3, it is determined whether or not the rear antenna 54 has received the RFID tag information of the food. That is, here, when the rear antenna 54 receives the RFID tag information, it is determined that the user has further stored food, and the process proceeds to step 4. On the other hand, when the RFID tag information is not received within a predetermined time (for example, 10 seconds) at the rear antenna 54, it is determined that the user has stopped storing the food. This is the state of the arrow on the right side of (3) in FIG.

  In step 4, when the RFID tag information is received by the rear antenna 54 and is not received by the front antenna 52 within a predetermined time, it is determined that the food has been stored. This is the state of the arrow above (1) in FIG. Then, the upper shelf antenna 56, the middle shelf antenna 58, and the lower shelf antenna 60 detect which shelf the food is stored in, and store the storage position.

  On the other hand, in step 4, when the RFID tag information is received again by the front antenna 52 within a predetermined time after being received by the rear antenna 54, it is determined that the user has stopped storing food. This is the state of the arrow above (2) in FIG.

  Next, processing when the user carries out food will be described.

  In step 1, when the door of the refrigerator compartment 14 is opened, the process proceeds to step 5.

  In step 5, when the RFID tag information of the food to be carried out by the rear antenna 54 is received, the process proceeds to step 6.

  In step 6, if the RFID tag information of the food is received by the front antenna 52 within a predetermined time, the process proceeds to step 7. On the other hand, when the front antenna 52 does not receive the RFID tag information of the food within a predetermined time, it is determined that the carry-out has been stopped. This is the state of the arrow below (3) in FIG.

  In step 7, if the RFID tag information of the food is not received again by the rear antenna 54 within a predetermined time, it is determined that the user has taken out the food. This is the state (1) in FIG.

  On the other hand, when the RFID tag information of the food is received again by the rear antenna 54 in step 7, it is determined that the user has stopped carrying out the food. This is the state of the arrow below (2) in FIG.

  As indicated by the up and down arrows in FIG. 6 (4), even if the user holds the food in the refrigerator compartment 14 for a predetermined time when storing the food, the front antenna 52 and the rear antenna If the RFID tag information is received in the order of 54, it can be determined that the food is stored as in the state of FIG.

  In step 8, when it is determined whether storage is stopped, stored, unloaded, or unloaded, when the door of the refrigerator compartment 14 is closed, the operation of each of the antennas 52 to 60 is stopped, and the stored or unloaded food is wireless. The tag information is transmitted to the home server 30.

  In the home server 30, the transmitted wireless tag information and the wireless tag information of the food currently stored in the refrigerator compartment 14 can be viewed on the liquid crystal display device 62. In particular, in the upper shelf antenna 56, the middle shelf antenna 58, and the lower shelf antenna 60, it is possible to detect in which shelf the food is stored, and thus the storage position of the food can be browsed.

[Second Embodiment]
Next, a second embodiment will be described based on FIG.

  The difference between this embodiment and the first embodiment is that, in addition to the function of the first embodiment, the user can write necessary information on the wireless tag 24 for food.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the wireless tag 24 has a fixed area and a user area, and data can be written to the user area for each user. Therefore, by using the home server 30 and designating that the user writes necessary write information through the tag detection device 26, the information required by the user can be written in the user area of the wireless tag 24. This makes it possible to make a distinction within each home and to manage the user's own food.

[Example of change]
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the gist thereof.

  For example, a speaker 51 may be provided in front of the door of the refrigerator compartment 14, and sound, voice, or music may be played each time the RFID tag information is received by each antenna 52-60. As a result, it is understood that the user has received the RFID tag information, and the foodstuff management can be performed happily without passing the food through the detection range many times or quitting the act from troublesomeness.

  The present invention is suitable for a household refrigerator.

It is a perspective view of the state which removed the door of the refrigerator which shows one Embodiment of this invention. It is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a refrigerator compartment. It is explanatory drawing which shows the relationship between a refrigerator, a home server, an information server, and a mobile phone. It is a block diagram of a refrigerator. It is a flowchart which shows storing and carrying out of foodstuffs. It is explanatory drawing which shows taking in and out of goods. It is a figure which shows the content of the memory of a wireless tag.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Refrigerator 14 Refrigerating room 24 Wireless tag 42-50 Door switch 52 Front antenna 54 Rear antenna 56 Upper shelf antenna 58 Middle shelf antenna 60 Lower shelf antenna 40 Control device 28 Wireless adapter 26 Tag detection device

Claims (7)

A storage room;
A door for opening and closing the opening of the storage room;
Door opening and closing detection means for detecting opening and closing of the door;
An antenna for communicating with a wireless tag provided on the food;
In a refrigerator having tag detection means for detecting RFID tag information stored in the RFID tag from the antenna,
The antenna is in the vicinity of the opening and a front antenna having a surface substantially parallel to the opening as a detection range; in the vicinity of the opening and behind the front antenna; and It consists of a rear antenna whose detection range is a plane substantially parallel to the opening,
The tag detection means operates the front antenna and the rear antenna after the door opening / closing detection means detects the open state of the door, and detects the RFID tag information in the order of the front antenna and the rear antenna. When it is determined that food is stored, and when the RFID tag information is detected in the order of the rear antenna and the front antenna, it is determined that the food is carried out. The tag detection means determines that the food is not stored when the RFID tag information is not received by the rear antenna within a predetermined time after the RFID tag information is detected by the front antenna. The refrigerator according to claim 1. The tag detection means determines that the food is not carried out when the RFID tag information is not received by the front antenna within a predetermined time after the RFID tag information is detected by the rear antenna. The refrigerator according to claim 1. The antenna further comprises one or more area antennas,
The refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein the area antenna communicates with RFID tag information of the RFID tag in a predetermined area behind the rear antenna. Having communication means for transmitting RFID tag information to the home server;
The refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein the tag detection means transmits the detected RFID tag information to the home server by the communication means. The refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein the home server has display means for displaying the received RFID tag information. The refrigerator according to claim 2, wherein the home server can write arbitrary information in a user area of the wireless tag.

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