Microwave oven with food search and localized heating
AssigneeSanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsKazuo Taino, Hiroyasu Kitagawa, Kazuko Tanaka, Yoshiko Yamane
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A microwave oven heats all food in an appropriate manner even if food items are simultaneously placed at multiple locations in a heating chamber. An auxiliary antenna is periodically stopped at an orientation corresponding to a position where a lowest temperature was detected at the start of the heating operation. Between stopped periods, the auxiliary antenna is rotated for a period to apply heat evenly to all food in the oven. If multiple low-temperature points are detected, the central position of these multiple low-temperature points is used for applying concentrated heat.
Claims7
A microwave oven comprising:
- a heating chamber for holding food;
- a microwave source for producing microwaves to heat said food;
- an irradiation antenna guiding said microwaves produced by said microwave source to said heating chamber;
- an antenna controller;
- said microwave source being effective, when said microwave source is performing a heating operation, to control said irradiation antenna in an alternating manner between a first mode wherein said microwaves from said microwave source are guided over an entirety of said heating chamber and a second mode wherein said microwaves are guided to a specific area in said heating chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.