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US 11,375,587 B2Granted
Pattern recognizing appliance
AssigneeHatco Corporation
InventorsNick Bassill, John Scanlon, Ishan Shah, Fei Shang, Max Walker
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A food preparation appliance includes a processing mechanism, a thermal element, a sensor positioned to acquire identifying data regarding identifying characteristics of a food product to be processed by the food preparation appliance, and a processing circuit. The processing circuit is configured to receive the identifying data from the sensor, identify a type of the food product based on the identifying data, and automatically set a predefined operating parameter of at least one of the processing mechanism and the thermal element to provide target processing of the food product based on the type and the identifying characteristics.
Claims19
A food preparation appliance comprising:
- a housing defining a processing zone;
- a processing mechanism at least partially positioned within the processing zone, the processing mechanism including a conveyor;
- a thermal element positioned within the processing zone, the thermal element including at least one of a heating element and a cooling element;
- a first arm positioned outside of the housing and extending laterally across a first portion of the conveyor located outside of an inlet of the processing zone;
- a second arm positioned outside of the housing and extending laterally across a second portion of the conveyor located outside of an outlet of the processing zone;
- a first sensor positioned external to the processing zone of the housing along the first arm, the first sensor positioned to monitor the first portion of the conveyor located outside of the housing to acquire identifying data regarding identifying characteristics of a food product that is on the first portion of the conveyor and prior to the food product entering into the processing zone to be processed by the food preparation appliance;
- a second sensor positioned external to the processing zone of the housing along the second arm, the second sensor positioned to acquire post-processing data regarding post-processing characteristics of the food product after processing;
- and
- a controller having programmed instructions:
- receive the identifying data from the first sensor;
- identify a type of the food product based on the identifying data;
- and
- automatically set a predefined operating parameter of at least one of the processing mechanism and the thermal element to provide target processing of the food product based on the type and the identifying characteristics.
10 more elements
A food preparation appliance comprising:
- a housing defining an inlet, an outlet, and a processing zone between the inlet and the outlet;
- a conveyor configured to move food products from the inlet, through the processing zone, and to the outlet;
- a plurality of sensors configured to acquire data regarding the food products, the plurality of sensors including:
- a first sensor positioned proximate the inlet of the housing and along a lateral side of the conveyor or along a first cantilever arm extending laterally across the conveyor;
- a second sensor positioned within the processing zone;
- and
- a third sensor positioned proximate the outlet of the housing and along a lateral side of the conveyor or along a second cantilever arm extending laterally across the conveyor;
- a heating element positioned within the processing zone, wherein at least one of (i) the conveyor includes a plurality of independently controllable conveyors arranged side-by-side and (ii) the heating element includes a plurality of independently controllable heating elements;
- and
- a controller having programmed instructions to:
- receive the data from the plurality of sensors regarding a plurality of food products on the conveyor, the data including information regarding at least (i) a respective type of each of the plurality of food products and (ii) a positioning of the plurality of products relative to one another;
- track the plurality of food products based on the data as the plurality of food products are moved through the processing zone simultaneously by the conveyor;
- and
- variably control operation of at least one of the conveyor and the heating element based on the tracking to facilitate variably processing the plurality of food products as the plurality of food products are moved through the processing zone simultaneously by the conveyor.
11 more elements
A food preparation appliance comprising:
- a housing defining an inlet, an outlet, and a processing zone between the inlet and the outlet;
- a conveyor configured to move a food product from the inlet, through the processing zone, and to the outlet;
- a heating element positioned within the processing zone;
- a first sensor positioned proximate the inlet of the housing and along a lateral side of the conveyor or along a first cantilever arm extending laterally across the conveyor, the sensor configured acquire pre-processing data regarding pre-processing characteristics of a food product to be processed by the food preparation appliance;
- a second sensor positioned within the processing zone that is configured to acquire processing data regarding in-process characteristics of the food product;
- a third sensor positioned proximate the outlet of the housing and along a lateral side of the conveyor or along a second cantilever arm extending laterally across the conveyor, the third sensor is configured to acquire post-processing data regarding post-processing characteristics of the food product;
- and
- a controller having programmed instructions to:
- receive the pre-processing data from the first sensor;
- identify a type of the food product based on the pre-processing data;
- automatically set an operating parameter of at least one of the conveyer and the heating element for target processing of the food product based on the type;
- receive the processing data from the second sensor regarding the in-process characteristics of the food product;
- adaptively adjust the operating parameter during processing of the food product in response to the in-process characteristics indicating that the food product is being processed too slowly or too quickly;
- receive the post-processing data from the third sensor regarding the post-processing characteristics of the food product;
- and
- adjust the operating parameter based on the post-processing characteristics of the food product for future processing of a similar food product.
13 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.