Today’s refrigerators are more energy efficient, are quieter, and are smarter than the ones developed in years past. Texas Instruments has developed products to meet the challenges and requirements for these new sophisticated systems.
Energy Efficiency: Home appliance (a.k.a. white goods) motors are often oversized to account for the load torque changes and transients. Scalar techniques for control can result in inefficient systems and noisy operation. This, in turn, leads to a mediocre energy efficiency that hovers in the 40% to 50% range. By implementing the control system with TI’s digital signal controllers, designers are able to implement smaller, quieter motors with energy efficiency as high as 85% - 90%. A high efficiency is necessary to receive a stamp of approval from a governing body such as the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy ENERGY STAR rating.
IEC 60730 Compliance: Home appliance manufacturers continually introduce new design enhancements to their automatic electronic controls that ensure safe, reliable and efficient operation of the equipment. Among other things, the IEC 60730 specification discusses mechanical, electrical, electronic, EMC, and abnormal operation of AC appliances. For microcontrollers, the specification details new test and diagnostic methods for the real-time embedded software to ensure the safe operation of embedded control hardware and software. All TI TMSxx24xxxx and TMSxx28xxxx digital signal controllers support IEC 60730 compliance.
High-Voltage Isolation: For larger, higher-performance products where reliability and motor-control accuracy are key concerns, TI offers isolation products that block high voltage, isolate grounds, and prevent noise currents from entering the local ground and interfering with or damaging sensitive circuitry.
Integration: Texas Instruments provides fully-integrated solutions such as the digital signal controllers (for digital motor control, Power Factor Correction, and other system functions), and relay drivers that provide up to 8 channels, zero-volt detection, and 5 V linear regulation for 5 V logic that may reside on the board.
Trends in Refrigerators:
Home Network: A home mesh network consisting of home appliances, audio/video equipment, HVAC system, lighting fixtures, etc connected wirelessly and controlled via a remote control sounds futuristic but can be done with TI’s ZigBee™ products. TI provides customers with industry-leading ZigBee™-compliant solutions and a broad range of proprietary RF-ICs that enable innovative low-power RF applications. With today’s TI ZigBee™ devices, appliance manufacturers can develop tomorrow’s products that communicate with each other by creating intelligent home networks such that, for example, a wash load is completed and a message be displayed on your TV, or LCD display on your refrigerator or remote control. With low-power wireless solutions from TI, home owners will benefit from a universal remote control that:
- Does not require line-of-sight
- Has an increased range such that one can remotely control any ZigBee device from anywhere in the home
- Allows for two-way communication
Automated Inventory: Manufacturers are already thinking about offering refrigerators equipped with RFID that allows customers to keep an up-to-date inventory of their refrigerated goods and have this information displayed on a video display that may reside on the refrigerator door. Once RFID tags on individual household goods become commonplace in the market, RFID-equipped refrigerators will be able to automatically identify the item as it is being taken in and out of the unit. This will happen once the large chain food retailers themselves use RFID as their main mechanism for receiving payment at the checkout counter.
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