Animal feeding device and method
OwnerRobert Michael Turner, Mark David Olcottinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An automated feeding system for pets with special diets includes a feeder dish which is made accessible to a pet only when an ID tag on the pet is recognized as authorized by a receiver on the device and only for a certain time period. The appropriate amount of food is thereby made available at appropriate time intervals. If a plurality of tags is pre-programmed as authorized, each animal's tag can sequentially activate the feeding device to feed each animal, respectively. However, if more than one authorized tag is present in the feeding time set for one animal, the drawer closes.
Claims24
An animal feeding device, comprising:
- a housing including a food dispensing mechanism, a drawer movable between a first position inside the housing and a second position outside the housing, a device for moving food from the food dispensing mechanism to the drawer;
- a radio frequency receiver;
- a radio frequency transmitter, spaced from the housing, and worn by an animal to send a signal to the receiver;
- and
- a controller, which receives confirmation from the receiver that a signal has been received from the transmitter, said controller recognizing the transmitter as an authorized transmitter and discriminating between said authorized transmitter, for which the controller moves the drawer into the second position, and an unauthorized transmitter, for which the controller does not move the drawer into the second position, or for which the controller moves the drawer from the second position to the first position.
A method for automatically feeding an animal, comprising the steps of:
- providing a housing having a food dispensing mechanism, a drawer to receive the food, which drawer is movable between a first position in the housing and a second position outside of the housing;
- providing a receiver to receive a signal generated by a radio frequency transmitter spaced from the receiver;
- programming a controller to recognize the transmitter as authorized;
- attaching the transmitter to the animal;
- putting the transmitter within a range of the receiver so that the receiver can receive a signal from the transmitter;
- having the receiver signal to the controller that a signal from the transmitter has been received;
- having the controller recognize the transmitter as authorized;
- and
- moving the drawer from the first position to the second position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.