Clothing Treatment Apparatus

This application is a National Stage application under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of International Application No. PCT/KR2023/008235, filed on Jun. 15, 2023, which claims the benefit of Korean Application Nos. 10-2023-0033150, filed on Mar. 14, 2023, and 10-2022-0075197, filed on Jun. 20, 2022. The disclosures of the prior applications are incorporated by reference in their entirety.

The present disclosure relates to a clothing treatment apparatus and a control method thereof. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a clothing treatment apparatus capable of determining whether clothes have fallen through an illuminance sensor.

In general, clothing treatment apparatuses conceptually include a washer that wets clothes in water to make it wet and then removes foreign substances through chemical action of detergent and physical action, such as drum rotation, and a dryer that dries the wet clothes using hot air and steam.

However, recently, a clothing care system that keeps dry clothes comfortable and clean without wetting thereof has appeared. This clothing care system may perform a refreshing cycle of removing odors from the clothes and drying or sterilizing the clothes by supplying steam or hot air to the clothes in a state in which the clothes are held.

This clothing care system may selectively add fragrance to the clothes, and has recently taken up an important role in clothing treatment apparatuses along with the washer and dryer.

illustrates a conventional clothing treatment apparatus provided with a steam supply.

Referring to Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2020-0057545, a conventional clothing treatment apparatus includes a cabinetforming the appearance of the apparatus, and an inner caseprovided in the cabinetto accommodate clothes.

The clothing treatment apparatus may have a circulation ductprovided under the inner caseto circulate air of the inner case, a heat exchangerprovided in the circulation ductto exchange heat with the air, and a compressorconfigured to supply a high-temperature refrigerant to the heat exchanger. In addition, a hanger unit configured to hold clothes may be provided in the inner case. When the compressoris operated, hot air may be supplied to the inner caseto raise the temperature of the clothes, and the clothes may be dried or sterilized.

In addition, referring to Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2020-0065886, a clothing treatment apparatus that measures the material of clothes, the load of the clothes, etc. inside an inner case using an optical sensor is provided.

The conventional clothing treatment apparatus had advantages of efficiently performing clothing management and reducing a time required for the management by determining control parameters applied to a blower or a steam generator based on the estimated load of clothes.

However, in the conventional clothing treatment apparatus, when clothes fall off of the hanger unit in the inner caseduring a clothing treatment process, a user may not recognize that the clothes have fallen off of a hanger during the clothing treatment process, and the clothes may be damaged if the fallen clothes block a steam or hot air injection hole.

Furthermore, since the user recognizes that the clothes have fallen and have not been properly treated after the clothing treatment process is over, there was a problem in that the user was not able to take active measures, resulting in low satisfaction with a clothing treatment apparatus product.

Accordingly, a clothing treatment apparatus that directly detects whether clothes have fallen by installing a load sensor on a hanger or the like has appeared. However, the load sensor may not properly detect whether clothes have fallen due to vibration occurring during the clothing treatment process and the light weight (1 kg or less) of the clothes.

Therefore, a need to provide a clothing treatment apparatus that may accurately determine whether clothes have fallen has arisen.

In addition, the clothing treatment apparatus may include a filter in the upper portion of a machine compartment to prevent dust from entering the inside of the circulation duct.

However, there was a problem in that the user would operate the clothing treatment apparatus while not installing the filter when using the clothing treatment apparatus, and if the filter was not installed, there is a high possibility that dust of large particles will enter the inside of the circulation duct, which may cause sanitation problems.

Accordingly, a clothing treatment apparatus that determines whether a filter is attached or detached using a reed switch installed on the filter has also appeared.

However, the reed switch is greatly affected by shock and vibration due to the mechanical characteristics thereof, causes separation of a contact part of the reed switch and reduces stability of the corresponding part, and is thus limited in accuracy.

In addition, there was a problem in that a mechanical reed switch wore out over time, and the lifespan thereof was thus limited.

Further, referring to Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-1995-0008839, a clothing treatment apparatus that detects clogging of a filter using light has appeared. However, since the conventional clothing treatment apparatus does not directly emit light to the filter, there was a problem in that it was not possible to determine whether the filter is not installed.

As a result, there was a problem in that the clothing treatment apparatus was not capable of accurately determining whether the filter was installed, and thus the clothing treatment apparatus was operated even when the filter was not installed.

In addition, the conventional clothing treatment apparatus had to have a device configured to detect falling of clothes and a device configured to detect attachment or detachment of the filter. Accordingly, the conventional clothing treatment apparatus required a plurality of parts and had inconvenience of having to determine and control the parts separately by a controller.

Further, the conventional clothing treatment apparatus may not determine whether clothes have fallen before or during clothing treatment, and had no choice but to continue a cycle without terminating the cycle even if the clothes have fallen.

Specifically, the conventional clothing treatment apparatus starts a clothing treatment step after a course input/change step in which a user selects a course, and even if the clothes have fallen, continues to perform the clothing treatment step without stopping the clothing treatment step until a set time elapses.

Accordingly, in the conventional clothing treatment apparatus, if the clothes have fallen and blocked a steam injection hole, there was a risk that the clothes would be damaged by hot and humid air injected during a steam cycle during the clothing treatment step.

In addition, there was a problem in that steam was not injected properly toward the inside of the inner case so that even the clothes hanging without falling would not be properly treated.

Therefore, a need to stop a cycle in progress and control whether to proceed with the cycle when detecting falling of clothes during clothing treatment was raised.

One technical task of the present disclosure is to provide a clothing treatment apparatus that may determine whether clothes have fallen from a change in the illuminance of light detected by a sensor unit when the clothes have fallen.

Another technical task of the present disclosure is to provide a clothing treatment apparatus that allows a user to proceed with clothing treatment even when it is impossible to determine whether clothes have fallen due to the long length of the clothes before the clothing treatment.

In order to solve the above technical tasks, the present disclosure provides a clothing treatment apparatus including a cabinet having an opening formed in a front portion thereof, an inner case provided in the cabinet to provide a space configured to accommodate clothes, a door coupled to the cabinet to open and close the opening, a hanger unit provided in an upper portion of the inner case to hold the clothes, a machine compartment provided to communicate with the inner case and including a heater configured to generate steam to be supplied to the inner case and a compressor configured to compress a refrigerant provided to exchange heat with air supplied to the inner case, a light emitting unit provided in one of the inner case, the door, and the machine compartment to emit light toward an inside of the inner case, a sensor unit provided in the inner case or the door to detect the light emitted from the light emitting unit, and a controller provided to control at least one of the heater, the compressor, or the sensor unit.

The controller may be provided to shut down operation of at least one of the heater or the compressor if the sensor unit is not able to detect the light emitted from the light emitting unit prior to the operation of the at least one of the heater or the compressor.

The clothing treatment apparatus may further include a display provided on the cabinet or the door to display clothing treatment information transmitted from the controller, and the clothing treatment information may include a stopped state of the operation of the at least one of the heater or the compressor.

The controller may display the stopped state of the operation of the at least one of the heater or the compressor on the display after shutting down the operation of the at least one of the heater or the compressor.

The controller may display the clothing treatment information on the display simultaneously with shutting down the operation of the at least one of the heater or the compressor.

The clothing treatment information may further include asking whether to reoperate one of the heater and the compressor in a fallen state of the clothes.

The clothing treatment apparatus may further include an input unit provided on the door or the cabinet to receive a driving command to reoperate the one of the heater and the compressor even in a state in which the sensor unit is not able to detect the light emitted from the light emitting unit.

The controller may reoperate the one of the heater and the compressor, when the driving command is input to the input unit.

The controller may shut down the operation of the one of the heater and the compressor, when the driving command is not input to the input unit.

The clothing treatment apparatus may further include a door detection unit provided in the cabinet or the door to detect opening of the door, and the controller may reoperate the one of the heater and the compressor if the door detection unit detects that the door is opened after the operation of the one of the heater or the compressor is shut down.

The clothing treatment apparatus may further include a filter unit provided in the machine compartment to filter out dust introduced from the inner case to the machine compartment, and the controller, if the one of the heater and the compressor is reoperated, may determine whether the filter is attached or detached by detecting an increase in an amount of the light emitted from the light emitting unit by the sensor unit, and determine whether the clothes have fallen by detecting a decrease in the amount of the light emitted from the light emitting unit by the sensor unit.

The light emitting unit and the sensor unit may be disposed below the hanger unit.

The machine compartment may further include an inflow body configured to communicate with a bottom surface of the inner case to allow air to be introduced thereinto, a circulation duct provided with a heat exchanger configured to heat the air introduced from the inflow body to generate hot air, and a discharge duct configured to allow the circulation duct to communicate with the inside of the inner case and disposed farther rearward than the inflow body, the light emitting unit may be provided on the inflow body, and the sensor unit may be provided on a rear surface of the inner case.

The clothing treatment apparatus may further include a reflection unit disposed above the light emitting unit and provided to guide the light emitted from the light emitting unit to the sensor unit.

The machine compartment may further include a body filter mounted on the inflow body, and a filter cover disposed above the body filter, and the reflection unit may include side reflectors disposed on both sides of the filter cover.

The present disclosure has the effect of determining whether clothes have fallen from a change in the illuminance of light detected by a sensor unit when the clothes have fallen.

The present disclosure has the effect of allowing a user to proceed with clothing treatment even when it is impossible to determine whether clothes have fallen due to the long length of the clothes before the clothing treatment.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the disclosure will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the present disclosure, the same or similar components are indicated by the same or similar reference numbers even in different embodiments, and the description thereof is replaced with the first description. In the following description of the present disclosure, singular expressions encompass plural expressions unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. In addition, in describing the embodiments of the present disclosure, if it is determined that the detailed descriptions of related known technologies may obscure the gist of the embodiments of the present disclosure, the detailed descriptions will be omitted. Further, it should be understood that the accompanying drawings are provided only for ease of understanding the embodiments of the present disclosure, and the technical idea of the present disclosure is not limited by the accompanying drawings.

illustrates the appearance of a clothing treatment apparatusof the present disclosure.

Referring to, the clothing treatment apparatus of the present disclosure may include a cabinetforming the appearance of the clothing treatment apparatus, and a doorrotatably coupled to the cabinet.

The doormay include a main bodyforming the front surface of the cabinet, and an installation bodyextending from one side of the main bodyso that a display configured to display information of the clothing treatment apparatus may be installed thereon.