Air cleaning device
AssigneeAlps Alpine Co., Ltd.
InventorHideki Sakamoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In an air-outlet unit that forms an air outlet of an air conditioner in an automobile, a light-emission control unit controls, in accordance with the airflow rate of the air conditioner that is obtained from an air-conditioning control device of the automobile, an LED driving unit that drives an LED array in such a manner that the amount of light that is emitted from the LED array and that activates a photocatalytic filter increases as the airflow rate of the air conditioner increases. The light that is emitted from the LED array is visible light, and some of the light that is reflected by the photocatalytic filter transmits to an area outside of the air-outlet unit by passing through fins that adjust the direction and the flow rate of the air blown by the air-outlet unit.
Claims5
An air cleaning device having an air supply port through which air is blown from an inner space to outside of the air cleaning device, the air cleaning device comprising:
- a light emitting diode (LED) that emits light to the inner space;
- a photocatalytic filter that is disposed in the inner space and that cleans air blown by the air cleaning device by being activated by light emitted from the LED;
- an airflow rate sensor that detects a flow rate of the air blown by the air cleaning device;
- a light-amount control unit that controls an amount of light that is emitted from the LED, wherein the light-amount control unit controls the amount of light that is emitted from the LED in such a manner that the amount of light increases as the airflow rate detected by the airflow rate sensor increases;
- and,
- a fin assembly positioned at the air supply port and a narrowing member disposed between the LED and the photocatalytic filter, the narrowing member defining an irradiation aperture oriented so that (i) light emitted by the LED is directly incident on the photocatalytic filter and does not directly transmit to the air supply port, (ii) light primarily reflected by the photocatalytic filter does not directly transmit through the air supply port, and (iii) at least a portion of secondary and subsequent reflected light components are permitted to transmit through the fin assembly to outside of the air cleaning device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.