The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 27, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 05, 1997
Vivek Venugopal Badami, Schenectady, NY (US);
Piero Patrone Bonissone, Schenectady, NY (US);
Mark Edward Dausch, Latham, NY (US);
General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for detecting the relative proportion of various fabric types present in a clothes load in a clothes washer are provided, in which a set of fuzzy logic membership functions is defined at each clothes load weight across a range of expected load weights to be handled by the clothes washer, with the set of membership functions representing various fabric types that might be present in the clothes load. The membership functions are defined at least in part by a washer operating state that is to be sensed during initial washer operation, and the method includes obtaining a value for the clothes load weight, sensing a value of the washer operating state, and determining a degree of fulfillment of the sensed value in each of the membership functions defined for that given clothes load. The degree of fulfillment represents the relative proportion of the various fabric types for which membership functions are defined, and the information regarding the resultant degrees of fulfillment may be employed in controlling the operation of the washer for optimal performance. The apparatus constitutes a washer controller having a microprocessor that receives signals corresponding to the weight of the clothes load, the sensed value of the predetermined washer operating state, and has stored therein the data necessary to generate the set of membership functions for each clothes load weight.