HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE AND METHOD FOR OPERATING THE SAME

Abstract

A household appliance has a sensor module and a control unit which are connected to one another via a cable harness containing a cable to supply power to the sensor module and to transmit data. The sensor module is connected to the control unit via an FDP-link III-compatible or GMSL-compatible connection which contains a serializer which is associated with the sensor module, a deserializer, and a cable harness which connects the serializer and the deserializer. A method is used to operate the household appliance, in which, sensor data generated by the sensor module are translated into FPD-link III-compatible serial data by the serializer of the FPD-link III connection. The serial data are transmitted via the cable harness to a deserializer and are back-translated therein, and the back-translated sensor data are transmitted to the control unit. The method is used in refrigeration appliances having cameras for recording images.

Claims

1-12. (canceled)

13. A household appliance, comprising: at least one sensor module; a controller; a cable set, said controller connected to said at least one sensor module by said cable set, said cable set having at least one cable so as to supply power to said at least one sensor module and to transmit data; and a connection selected from the group consisting of: a flat panel display (FPD)-Link III-complaint connection and a gigabit multimedia serial link (GMSL)-compliant connection, wherein said at least one sensor module is connected to said controller via said FPD-Link III-complaint connection or said GMSL-compliant connection, said connection containing a serializer being associated with said at least one sensor module and a deserializer being associated with said controller, said cable set connecting said serializer and said deserializer.

14. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein said cable set has a single coaxial cable.

15. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein said cable set contains a twisted pair cable and at least one further cable so as to supply the power to said at least one sensor module.

16. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein said serializer of said FPD-Link III-compliant connection or said GMSL-compliant connection is integrated into said at least one sensor module and said deserializer is integrated into said controller.

17. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein via said FPD-Link III-complaint connection or said GMSL-compliant connection: sensor data is transmitted from said at least one sensor module to said controller; further data is transmitted at least from said controller to said at least one sensor module; and said at least one sensor module is supplied with electrical energy.

18. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein: said at least one sensor is one of a plurality of sensors; and said controller contains a switch and a data processing facility having an interface with multiple connections for said sensor modules which are connected to said switch and said switch is connected to multiple groups of said deserializer, wherein said switch is configured so as to switch alternately between said multiple groups of said deserializer.

19. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein: said at least one sensor is one of a plurality of sensors; and said controller has a data processing facility, said data processing facility and said sensor modules each have a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) that are connected to one another by a respective one said FPD-Link III-compliant connection or said GMSL-compliant connection.

20. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein said at least one sensor module is a camera module that has a camera sensor.

21. The household appliance according to claim 20, wherein said camera module has additionally at least one gyro sensor.

22. The household appliance according to claim 13, wherein the household appliance is a refrigeration appliance having at least one refrigeration chamber and said at least one sensor module is provided so as to monitor said at least one refrigeration chamber.

23. A method for operating a household appliance having at least one sensor module and a controller, which are connected to one another so as to supply power to the at least one sensor module and to transmit data by a cable set that contains at least one cable, wherein the at least one sensor module is connected to the controller via a flat panel display (FPD)-Link III-complaint connection or a gigabit multimedia serial link (GMSL)-compliant connection, which comprises the step of: translating sensor data being generated by the at least one sensor module into FPD-Link III-compliant serial data or GMSL-compliant serial data by means of a serializer of the FPD-Link III-compliant connection or the GMSL compliant connection; transmitting the FPD-Link III-compliant serial data or the GMSL-compliant serial data via the cable set to a deserializer; retranslating the FPD-Link III-compliant serial data or the GMSL-compliant serial data by means of the deserializer resulting in retranslated sensor data; and transmitting the retranslated sensor data to the controller.

24. The method according to claim 23, wherein the sensor data is present as mobile industry processor interface compliant data.

Description

[0048] The above-described characteristics, features and advantages of the present invention, as well as the manner in which they are achieved, will become clearer and more readily understood in connection with the following schematic description of an exemplary embodiment, which will be explained in more detail in connection with the drawings.

[0049] FIG. 1 shows a sectional side view of a household appliance in the form of a refrigerator having multiple sensor modules in the form of camera modules;

[0050] FIG. 2 shows a sectional view of the household appliance according to FIG. 1;

[0051] FIG. 2 shows an architecture of a control unit of the refrigerator having a deserializer to which multiple sensor modules are connected via respective FPD-Link III or GMSL-compliant connections; and

[0052] FIG. 3 shows an architecture of a control unit of the refrigerator having multiple deserializers, to each of which multiple sensor modules are connected via respective FPD-Link III- or GMSL-compliant connections.

[0053] FIG. 1 shows a sectional side view of a household appliance in the form of a refrigerator 1, which has a refrigeration chamber 3 that can be closed off at the front by means of a door 2. The refrigeration chamber 3 can be subdivided in a fundamentally known manner, for example by glass shelves 4, into multiple sub-chambers or compartments. Also, one or more drawers (not shown) can be provided for receiving refrigerated goods.

[0054] Purely by way of example, the refrigerator 1 has two sensor modules in the form of camera modules, namely a camera/gyro module 5 that is accommodated on an inner side 21 of the door 2, and a camera module 6 that is arranged in the region of a ceiling of the refrigeration chamber 3. The camera/gyro module 5 has a camera sensor and at least one gyro sensor, while the camera module 6 has only one camera sensor. The camera/gyro module 5 and the camera module 6 are connected to a control unit (“system master 7”) via a respective FPD-Link III connection 8. Alternatively, the FPD-Link III connection can be implemented as a GMSL-compatible or -compliant connection 8′ (“Gigabit Multimedia Serial Link”).

[0055] Furthermore, a proximity sensor 22, in particular a Hall sensor, is arranged on the body of the household appliance 1 and a sensing element 23, in particular magnet, is arranged on the door 2. If the door 2 is in an open position or the sensing element 23 is located outside the detection range of the proximity sensor 22, this is reported by the proximity sensor 22 to the control unit 7, and if the door 2 is in a preferably fully closed position or the sensing element is within the detection range of the proximity sensor 22, the proximity sensor 22 reports this to the control unit 7. Depending on the open position or closed position of the door 2, corresponding electrical units, such as, for example, a serializer/deserializer component or the camera module, can be switched to the active/inactive state or sleep state triggered by the proximity sensor or other sensors in order to enable an energy efficient operation of the household appliance.

[0056] The refrigerator 1 can have at least one further control unit, in this case for example a control unit 9 for controlling a refrigeration circuit.

[0057] For simplicity, the following explanations are described with reference to the FPD-Link III compliant connection 8, but the explanations apply analogously to the GMSL-compliant connection 8′.

[0058] FIG. 2 shows in a sectional view the household appliance according to FIG. 1. In the illustration, the household appliance is also a refrigerator 1. In contrast to FIG. 1, in the illustration the refrigerator 1 is shown with the door 2 in the open position. The door 2 is connected to the refrigerator 1 via a hinge 20, in particular a multi-joint hinge, and the door 2 is pivotable about a vertical axis from a closed position to an open position, and vice versa. Further, a cable set or coaxial cable 16 or FPD-Link III-compliant connection 8 is partially accommodated in a cable chain 19. The cable chain 19 comprises multiple links that are connected to one another in pairs and are pivotable relative to one another about axes that are parallel to one another between a stretched stop configuration and a curved stop configuration. When the door 2 is in the open position, the cable chain 19 tends to be in a more elongated configuration, and when the door 2 is in the closed position, the cable chain 19 tends to be in a more curved or even looped configuration. The cable chain 19 having the cable set 16 is placed on an upper side of the hinge 20 and can further be held on the hinge 20 via fixings. Due to the thin design of the cable set 16, it can be guided via a hinge into the door 2 of the refrigerator 2 by simple and cost-effective means, such as a cable chain 20.

[0059] FIG. 3 shows a possible architecture of the system master 7 in a first development 7a, to which multiple sensor modules are connected via respective FPD-Link III-compliant connections 8, and namely here the camera/gyro sensor module 5 that is equipped with a camera sensor 10 and at least one gyro sensor 11, the camera module 6 that is equipped with a camera sensor 10, and where appropriate two further sensor modules 12 via respective FPD-Link III-compliant connections 8 (shown in dashed lines).

[0060] The FPD-Link III connections 8 each comprise a serializer 13, which is integrated in the sensor modules 5, 6 and 12, and a deserializer 14 which is integrated in the system master 7a, wherein four deserializers 14 are accommodated in a common deserializer component 15. The serializers 13 are connected to one another with the respective deserializers 14 via respective FPD-Link III-compliant coaxial cables 16 of the respective FPD-Link III connections 8.

[0061] The deserializers 12 are connected to a respective connection of, here by way of example, a total of four connections of an MIPI interface of a data processing facility 17 of the system master 7a, so that the respective sensors of the sensor modules 5, 6 and 12, which also have MIPI interfaces, are transparently connected to the respective connections of the MIPI interface of the data processing facility 17. Camera modules 5, 6, 12 that are equipped with a camera sensor 10 can also still have image pre-processing.

[0062] Sensor data (i.e. image data) that is recorded by the camera sensors 10 is output as—where appropriate pre-processed—MIPI-compliant data to the associated serializer 13, which transforms the MIPI data in an FPD-Link III-compliant manner and sends it to the associated deserializer 14 via the respective coaxial cable 16. At the deserializer 14, the serialized data is retransformed into the original MIPI data and forwarded to the MIPI interface of the data processing facility 17. The data processing facility 17 can further process and evaluate the images, for example, so as to detect objects that are stored in the refrigeration chamber 3, etc.

[0063] In the reverse direction, the data processing facility 17 can, for example, send control data specifically to the sensor modules 5, 6 and 12.

[0064] Sensor data from sensors other than the camera sensors 10, such as the gyro sensor 11, are transmitted analogously and can be transmitted via the same FPD-Link III-compliant connection 8 and received logically separately by the data processing facility 17, in particular when a bus architecture is used, for example an I.sup.2C bus. Thus, the FPD-Link III-compliant connection 8 can also be used generally as a bus line.

[0065] Further, the gyro sensor 15 can be provided so as to switch the serializer 13 from an active to an inactive state, for example completely de-energized or asleep, or vice versa, in order to enable an energy efficient operation of the household appliance 1. The camera sensor 10 can likewise be switched to an inactive state, for example fully de-energized or asleep, by the control unit 7, that is triggered by the proximity sensor 22 or gyro sensor 11, via the active FPD-Link III-compliant connection 8, for energy efficiency reasons.

[0066] FIG. 4 shows an architecture with an alternative development 7b of the system master 7, to which more sensor modules are connected via respective FPD-Link III-compliant connections 8 to the system master 7b than MIPI connections are available at the data processing facility 17, and namely in this case the camera module 5, the camera module 6, three further sensor modules 12 and where appropriate still further sensor modules 12 (shown in dashed lines).

[0067] Since the deserializer components 15 here have only four connections for coaxial cables 16, two deserializer components 15 are used so as to connect up to eight sensor modules 5, 6, 12, and via a switch said deserializer components run here: an MIPI switch 18, so that the MIPI data that is output by the deserializers 14 arrives at the data processing facility 17 alternately, for example time-multiplexed. This setup circumvents a possible limitation in the number of connections of the deserializer components 15. The system master 7b can therefore also be used to implement, for example, a 6-5 or 8-camera module concept. This setup can be extended in analogy to more than eight sensor modules 5, 6, 12 as desired.

[0068] Of course, the present invention is not limited to the exemplary embodiment shown.

[0069] Thus, there can also be more or fewer MIPI connections on the data processing facility 17. In addition, multiple deserializers 14 need not be combined into one deserializer component 15. Further, said deserializer component 15 can also have more or fewer deserializers 14 than there are MIPI connections on data processing facility 17.

[0070] In general, “a”, “one”, etc. can be understood to be singular or plural, especially in the sense of “at least one” or “one or more”, etc., as long as this is not explicitly excluded, for example by the expression “precisely one”, etc.

[0071] Also, a numerical specification can include exactly the specified number as well as a usual tolerance range, as long as this is not explicitly excluded.

LIST OF REFERENCE CHARACTERS

[0072] 1 Refrigerator [0073] 2 Door [0074] 3 Refrigeration chamber [0075] 4 Shelf [0076] 5 Camera/gyro module [0077] 6 Camera module [0078] 7 System master [0079] 7a First variant of the system master [0080] 7b Second variant of the system master [0081] 8 FPD-Link III connection [0082] 8′ GMSL connection [0083] 9 Control unit for controlling a refrigeration circuit [0084] 10 Camera sensor [0085] 11 Gyro sensor [0086] 12 Further sensor module [0087] 13 Serializer [0088] 14 Deserializer [0089] 15 Deserializer component [0090] 16 Coaxial cable [0091] 17 Data processing facility [0092] 18 MIPI switch [0093] 19 Cable chain [0094] 20 Hinge [0095] 21 Inside [0096] 22 Proximity sensor [0097] 23 Sensing element