Air conditioning system and method for controlling the same

Abstract

An air conditioning system including an outdoor unit having at least one compressor, and at least one outdoor heat exchanger; a plurality of indoor units connected to the outdoor unit; a refrigerant guide unit to guide a refrigerant discharged from the at least one compressor to the indoor units through first and / or second routes; and a control unit to simultaneously control a first quantity of the refrigerant discharged from the at least one compressor to at least one of the indoor units operating in a cooling mode through the first route, and a second quantity of the refrigerant discharged from the at least one compressor to a remainder of the indoor units operating in a heating mode through the second route.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2004-3733, filed Jan. 19, 2004, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to an air conditioning system comprising a plurality of indoor units connected to an outdoor unit, in which heating and cooling operations are simultaneously performed, and a method for controlling the air conditioning system. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] Generally, an air conditioning system performs an air conditioning operation in an indoor space using a single outdoor unit and a plurality of indoor units connected to the outdoor unit. The outdoor unit includes a compressor, an outdoor heat exchanger, an outdoor fan, and a motor-operated outdoor valve. Each of the indoor units includes an indoor heat exchanger, an in...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides an air conditioning system that can quickly perform the heating mode by simultaneously controlling the operation of the compressor, the refrigerant guide unit, and the indoor units. This is achieved by controlling the refrigerant discharged from the compressor to the indoor units through separate routes, allowing for efficient operation in both the cooling and heating modes. The control unit takes into account the operational characteristics of the starting and main operations of the system, ensuring optimal performance. The technical effects of the invention include faster heating of the system and increased operating efficiency.

Problems solved by technology

Since a temperature which a resident can sense in an indoor space varies according to a change of seasons and surrounding environment, operating modes, such as heating and cooling modes, applied to all the indoor units are not necessarily uniform, but may, instead, be different from one another.

Since the indoor units set in the heating mode do not perform a heating operation during the starting operation in the general cooling mode, the conventional air conditioning system is at a disadvantage because the heating operation is delayed.

However, since the control applied to the starting operation and the control applied to the main operation performed after the starting operation are almost identically performed, the conventional air conditioning system has a disadvantage in that the operating efficiency is reduced.

That is, the air conditioning system fluctuates extremely during the starting operation, thus being unstable and increasing the amount of time taken to stabilize the system.

Further, since the conventional air conditioning system relates mainly to the cooling mode, the conventional air conditioning system has a disadvantage in that the cooling capacity is comparatively good, but the heating capacity is poor.

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