Systems and methods for determining drying time for a clothes dryer
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsNicolas Wadih Chbat, Vivek Venugopal Badami
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Abstract
A clothes dryer includes a control system for determining the drying time for a partial load in a clothes dryer. The system includes a humidity sensor, a signal processor, and a fuzzy logic control system. The humidity sensor generates a humidity signal representative of the humidity of air flowing through the trap duct. The humidity sensor transmits the humidity signal to the signal processor, and the signal processor determines a drying span utilizing the humidity signal. The fuzzy logic control system then utilizes the drying span to estimate the clothes load.
Claims19
A system for determining drying time in a clothes dryer, said system comprising:
- a humidity sensor for generating a signal representative of the humidity of air flowing through a trap duct in the dryer;
- a signal processor coupled to said sensor for receiving the humidity signal and configured to determine a drying span utilizing the humidity signal;
- and
- a fuzzy logic control system coupled to said signal processor and configured to determine the drying time corresponding to said drying span.
A clothes dryer comprising a system for determining drying time for a clothes load in said clothes dryer, the clothes dryer including a drum for holding clothes to be dried, an inside door and a trap duct, said system for determining drying time comprising:
- a first temperature sensor disposed in a first location for transmitting a first signal representative of temperature inside said drum;
- a second temperature sensor disposed in a second location for transmitting a second signal representative of temperature in said trap duct;
- a fuzzy logic control system coupled to said first and second temperature sensor for receiving said respective temperature representative signals and configured to determine the clothes load in correspondence with a mean value of the temperature difference between said first and second temperature signals.
A method for determining drying time for a clothes load in a clothes dryer, the dryer including a humidity sensor for generating a signal representative of the humidity of air flowing through a trap duct in the dryer, said method comprising the steps of:
- determining a drying span utilizing the humidity signal;
- using a fuzzy logic controller for determining membership in fuzzy sets representing clothes load in correspondence to the drying span;
- and
- using said fuzzy logic controller, determining drying time as a function of the determined membership in fuzzy sets representing clothes load.
A clothes dryer comprising a system for determining drying time for a clothes load in said clothes dryer, the clothes dryer including a drum for holding clothes to be dried and a trap duct through which exhaust air passes from said drum, said system for determining drying time comprising:
- a temperature module, said temperature module comprising at least a first temperature sensor disposed in a first location for transmitting a first signal representative of temperature inside said drum and at least a second temperature sensor disposed in a second location for transmitting a second signal representative of temperature in said trap duct, and a signal processor coupled to said first and second temperature sensors and adapted to generate a signal corresponding to the mean temperature difference between said first and second temperature signals;
- a humidity module, said humidity module comprising at least one humidity sensor disposed to sense humidity of the exhaust air and a signal processor coupled to said humidity sensor and adapted to generate a signal corresponding to humidity of the exhaust air;
- and
- a fuzzy logic control system coupled to said temperature module and to said humidity module, said fuzzy logic control system further being configured to generate a clothes load signal corresponding to at least one of said mean temperature difference signal and said humidity signal, said control system further being configured to generate a drying time signal in correspondence with the determined clothes load signal.
A method for determining drying time for a clothes load in a clothes dryer, the dryer including a drum holding clothes do be dried and a trap duct through which air exhausts from said drum, and a plurality of temperature sensors, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating a first temperature signal corresponding to the temperature in said drum;
- generating a second temperature signal corresponding to the temperature of the exhaust air from said drum;
- generating a mean temperature difference signal representing the mean of temperature difference between said first and second temperature signal;
- using a fuzzy logic controller for determining membership in fuzzy sets representing clothes load in correspondence with said mean temperature difference signal, and
- using said fuzzy logic controller for determining drying time as a function of the determined membership in fuzzy sets representing clothes load.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.