Clothing Processing Apparatus

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 and controlling a clothing treatment process depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen.

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 falling 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.

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 detects whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and controls a cycle differently depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen.

Another technical task of the present disclosure is to provide a clothing treatment apparatus that detects whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and stops a cycle depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen to prevent damage to the clothes.

Another technical task of the present disclosure is to provide a clothing treatment apparatus that detects whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and stops a cycle depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen so that a user recognizes falling of the clothes to prevent a clothing treatment step from being performed in the fallen state of the clothes so as to prevent damage to the clothes.

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

In order to solve the above technical tasks, the present disclosure provides a clothing treatment apparatus including a sensor unit provided in an inner case or a machine compartment to detect whether clothes have fallen, and a controller provided to control at least one of a heater, a compressor, or the sensor unit, wherein the controller is provided to shut down operation of the heater if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen.

The controller may be provided to operate at least one of the heater or the compressor to perform an arbitrary course to treat the clothes.

The controller may shut down the operation of the heater and put the heater on standby if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen before the heater is operated.

The controller may shut down operation of the compressor and put the compressor on standby.

The controller may stop the operation of the heater if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen during the operation of the heater.

The controller may allow the operation of the compressor.

The controller may be provided to shut down the operation of the heater and to maintain the operation of the compressor if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen during the operation of the compressor.

The controller may shut down the operation of the heater and stop the operation of the compressor if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen during the operation of the compressor.

The sensor unit may be provided as any one of an illuminance sensor configured to detect whether light is blocked by the fallen clothes, a radar sensor configured to emit electromagnetic waves as a signal and receive a reflected signal to detect weight of the clothes, and a load sensor provided on the hanger unit to detect the weight of the clothes.

The sensor unit may be provided as the illuminance sensor, the clothing treatment apparatus may further include a light emitting unit provided to emit light into the inner case, and the sensor unit may detect falling of the clothes by blocking the light emitted from the light emitting unit by the fallen clothes.

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

The controller may be provided to prevent the light emitting unit from emitting light if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen.

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

The controller may be provided so that the sensor unit detects again whether the clothes have fallen when the one of the heater unit and the compressor is reoperated.

The present disclosure provides a clothing treatment apparatus including a sensor unit provided in an inner case or a machine compartment to detect whether clothes have fallen, a controller provided to control at least one of a heater, a compressor, or the sensor unit, and a display provided on a cabinet or a door to display information transmitted from the controller, wherein the controller displays clothing treatment information related to falling of the clothes on the display if the sensor unit detects that the clothes have fallen.

The clothing treatment information may include a state in which the clothes have fallen.

The controller may shut down operation of at least one of the heater or the compressor, 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 clothing treatment information 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 one of the heater and the compressor even in a fallen state of the clothes.

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 present disclosure has the effect of detecting whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and controlling a cycle differently depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen.

The present disclosure has the effect of detecting whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and stopping a cycle depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen to prevent damage to the clothes.

The present disclosure has the effect of detecting whether clothes have fallen during clothing treatment and stopping a cycle depending on a point in time when the clothes have fallen so that a user recognizes falling of the clothes to prevent a clothing treatment step from being performed in the fallen state of the clothes so as to prevent damage to the clothes.

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.

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.