Cooking hood vent with predictive event recognition

A cooking exhaust hood system, comprising:

• an exhaust hood adapted to be located over at least one cooking appliance;
• an exhaust fan connected to the exhaust hood, the exhaust fan having a controllable exhaust air flow volume;
• a camera that monitors a surface of the at least one cooking appliance and provides an image signal representing a visual status of the at least one cooking appliance;
• an image processing controller connected to an image database, the image processing controller being configured to receive the image signal, compare the visual status of the at least one cooking appliance based on the image signal to stored images in the image database, and output a cooking appliance status signal;
• an exhaust fan controller connected to the exhaust fan, the exhaust fan controller being configured to receive the cooking appliance status signal and adjust the controllable exhaust air flow volume of the exhaust fan based on the cooking appliance status signal,
• wherein the image processing controller is trainable to recognize cooking appliance conditions including a number and type of the cooking appliances being used as well as food items located on the cooking appliance, and
• the exhaust fan controller is adapted to adjust the exhaust air flow volume based on the number and type of the at least one cooking appliance being used to implement a predictive control of the exhaust air flow volume.