Microwave with controlled beverage warming
AssigneeMidea Group Co., Ltd.
InventorsJohn Kenneth Hooker, Matthew Melton, Rob Bultman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A microwave cooking appliance performs controlled beverage warming using a temperature sensor to capture a thermal image of a beverage in a cooking cavity. One or more sensing locations within the thermal image that are suitable for determining the temperature of the beverage are determined in part by ordering temperature readings from the thermal image by temperature to determine a temperature function and then determining locations in the thermal image that correspond to the beverage by calculating a derivative function over at least a portion of the temperature function.
Claims20
A microwave cooking appliance, comprising:
- an enclosure including a cooking cavity configured to receive a beverage;
- a microwave power generator configured to generate microwave energy for heating the beverage received in the cooking cavity;
- a temperature sensor configured to capture thermal images of the cooking cavity and to output, for each thermal image, temperature data representing a plurality of temperature readings for a plurality of locations within a field of view of the temperature sensor;
- and
- a controller coupled to the microwave power generator and the temperature sensor and configured to perform a cycle to heat the beverage received in the cooking cavity by:
- receiving a first thermal image captured by the temperature sensor;
- attempting to determine one or more sensing locations corresponding to the beverage from among the plurality of locations within the field of view of the temperature sensor using the temperature data for the first thermal image;
- in response to successfully determining the one or more sensing locations:
- activating the microwave power generator for one or more phases to heat the beverage to a predetermined temperature;
- and
- monitoring a current temperature of the beverage by receiving a second thermal image captured by the temperature sensor and determining the current temperature for the beverage using the temperature readings in the second thermal image corresponding to the determined one or more sensing locations;
- and
- in response to unsuccessfully determining the one or more sensing locations:
- activating the microwave power generator to heat the beverage for a predetermined duration;
- receiving a third thermal image captured by the temperature sensor after activating the microwave power generator to heat the beverage for the predetermined duration;
- and
- determining the one or more sensing locations corresponding to the beverage from among the plurality of locations within the field of view of the temperature sensor using the temperature data for the third thermal image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.