Portable heater and cooler
AssigneeAlexandre Dupuy
InventorAlexandre Dupuy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is a portable heating/cooling device comprising one or more heating elements for transferring heat to an object, one or more cooling elements for cooling an object; wherein said heating or cooling elements are adapted for selectively providing either heating or cooling based on temperature maintenance requirements, an integrated control unit for regulating the temperature, one or more temperature sensors that provide real-time feedback to the control unit, and a power source for supplying energy to the heating/cooling elements.
Claims18
A portable temperature-regulating container comprising:
- a thermally insulated enclosure defining at least one internal compartment configured to receive and store one or more items;
- at least one temperature-conditioning element comprising:
- one or more heating elements and one or more active cooling elements comprising a thermoelectric module being thermally coupled to a heat sink;
- or a combination thereof;
- wherein the at least one temperature-conditioning element is disposed on, within, or adjacent to a surface of the enclosure, and wherein each of the one or more heating elements and each of the one or more cooling elements is independently controllable;
- at least one temperature sensor positioned to detect a temperature within the at least one internal compartment;
- a control module operatively coupled to the at least one temperature sensor and to the at least one temperature-conditioning element, the control module being configured to selectively activate the at least one temperature-conditioning element based on temperature readings from the at least one temperature sensor;
- and
- a modular battery-system power source electrically coupled to the control module and to the at least one temperature-conditioning element.
A portable temperature-regulating container device comprising:
- a thermally insulated enclosure defining at least one internal configured to receive and store one or more items;
- one or more high-efficient radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers electrically coupled to one or more radiative antennas configured to radiate RF electromagnetic energy to heat an object primarily via dielectric losses in the object rather than via induction heating of conductive materials;
- at least one temperature sensor positioned to detect a temperature within the at least one internal compartment;
- a control module operatively coupled to the at least one temperature sensor and to the one or more RF power amplifiers, the control module configured to selectively modulate the radiated RF power based on temperature readings from the sensor to maintain the object within a desired temperature range;
- and
- a modular battery-system power source electrically coupled to the one or more RF power amplifiers and to the control module.
A method for maintaining zone-specific temperatures in a multi-zone portable insulated container, the method comprising:
- detecting zone-specific temperatures within the container using one or more temperature sensors;
- comparing the detected temperatures with predetermined temperature setpoints for each of the respective zones;
- independently activating one or more heating elements in the zones requiring warming and independently activating one or more cooling elements in the zones requiring cooling;
- adjusting operation of the one or more heating elements, the one or more cooling elements, or a combination thereof in real-time based on feedback from the one or more temperature sensors;
- and
- wirelessly communicating temperature status data between the container and a remote computing device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.