UTENSIL OF COOKING BY AUTOMATIC HEATING

• Main Author: TANAKA EIICHI
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 18.06.1990
• Subjects: BLASTING; DETAILS OF DOMESTIC STOVES OR RANGES, OF GENERAL APPLICATION; HEATING; LIGHTING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; OTHER DOMESTIC STOVES OR RANGES; RANGES; VENTILATING; WEAPONS

PURPOSE:To make it possible to conduct cooking by automatic heating which leaves no uneven roasting on foods by recognizing form by imaging means in order to detect visually a change of a food during cooking and detecting image signals at various positions of the food. CONSTITUTION:When cooking is started, a food 5 is lighted by a light which lights the inside of the chamber of the main body 1 of a cooking utensil and the image of the food 5 is taken in by imaging means 11 and the light reflected from the food 5 is focused at a solid state imaging element 13. The output of this element 13 is subject to a specified process by an image signal processing section 14, and then it is converted to digital by an A/D converter section 15 and inputted to an image memory section 16. Next, this image is binary-coded by a binary-coding circuit section 8, and the signal levels are scanned to set up the inside at a certain distance from the end sections of the food 5 as a detection position. Then the signal level of the memory section 16 corresponding to the detection position in the memory section 16 is detected and at the same time the differential value of the signals is sought. When the differential value is judged to have reached a specified detection level by a detection section 20 for the finish of roasting, the sudden change-point in the change of finished roastings is detected by a change-point detection section 21 and by the outputs of detection sections 20 and 20 the source 8 of heating is controlled by a heating source drive section 22 to finish cooking.