AIR CONDITIONER HAVING THE FUNCTION OF COMMUNICATION BASED ON REFRIGERANTS PIPE USING CHACTERISTICS OF WAVE GUIDE AND METHOD THEREOF

摘要

The present specification provides an air conditioner with a coolant pipe communication device performing data communication between an outdoor unit and multiple indoor units or between multiple indoor units by transceiving electromagnetic waves using a coolant pipe as a wave director and to a pipe communication method. To achieve the same, an air conditioner according to an embodiment includes multiple indoor units for air-conditioning; an outdoor unit operating the multiple indoor units; a coolant pipe connecting the outdoor unit and the multiple indoor units or the multiple units; and a pipe communication device connected to or formed on each of the outdoor unit and indoor units and performing data communication between the outdoor unit and the multiple indoor units or the multiple units by transceiving the electromagnetic waves using the coolant pipe as the wave director. The coolant pipe includes multiple sub pipes having features of a high-bandwidth filter while having different thickness. The pipe communication device transceives the electromagnetic waves at a specific transmission frequency or higher. The present invention is characterized by determining the specific frequency based on the sub pipe having the highest cut-off frequency among the sub pipes.