System and technique for ultrasonic determination of degree of cooking
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for monitoring the degree of doneness of food comprising:
- a vessel, which, in use, contains a fluid and a quantity of food disposed in the fluid;
means for heating said fluid to cook said food;
first and second ultrasonic transducers acoustically associated with said vessel wherein ultrasonic signals transmitted by said first ultrasonic transducer pass through at least a portion of said fluid and said food and are then received by said second ultrasonic transducer; and
a processing device operable to receive an output from said second ultrasonic transducer representative of said signal received by said second ultrasonic transducer, wherein said output exhibits at least one transmission characteristic of said received signal which varies as a function of the doneness of said food;
wherein the processing device is further operable to determine a first value corresponding to the doneness of said food from the received output and a value corresponding to an ultrasonic characteristic of the fluid.
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Abstract
A method and apparatus are described for determining the doneness of food during a cooking process. Ultrasonic signal are passed through the food during cooking. The change in transmission characteristics of the ultrasonic signal during the cooking process is measured to determine the point at which the food has been cooked to the proper level. In one aspect, a heated fluid cooks the food, and the transmission characteristics along a fluid-only ultrasonic path provides a reference for comparison with the transmission characteristics for a food-fluid ultrasonic path.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. An apparatus for monitoring the degree of doneness of food comprising:
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a vessel, which, in use, contains a fluid and a quantity of food disposed in the fluid; means for heating said fluid to cook said food; first and second ultrasonic transducers acoustically associated with said vessel wherein ultrasonic signals transmitted by said first ultrasonic transducer pass through at least a portion of said fluid and said food and are then received by said second ultrasonic transducer; and a processing device operable to receive an output from said second ultrasonic transducer representative of said signal received by said second ultrasonic transducer, wherein said output exhibits at least one transmission characteristic of said received signal which varies as a function of the doneness of said food; wherein the processing device is further operable to determine a first value corresponding to the doneness of said food from the received output and a value corresponding to an ultrasonic characteristic of the fluid. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. An apparatus for monitoring the degree of doneness of food comprising:
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means for heating said food to a temperature sufficient to cook said food; first and second opposed ultrasonic transducers positioned on opposite sides of the vessel from each other, acoustically associated with said food wherein ultrasonic signals transmitted by said first ultrasonic transducer pass through at least a portion of said food and are then received by said second ultrasonic transducer; and a processing device operable to receive an output from said second ultrasonic transducer representative of said signal received by said second ultrasonic transducer, wherein said output exhibits at least one transmission characteristic of said received signal which varies as a function of the doneness of said food, wherein the processing device is further operable to determine a first value corresponding to the doneness of said food from the received output. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. An apparatus for monitoring the degree of doneness of food comprising:
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a vessel; a fluid contained in said vessel; a quantity of food disposed in said fluid; means for heating said fluid in said vessel to cook said food; first and second ultrasonic transducers located adjacent to said vessel and positioned on opposite sides of said vessel from each other such that a portion of said fluid substantially without food lies between said first and second transducers; third and fourth ultrasonic transducers located adjacent to said vessel and positioned on opposite sides of said vessel from each other such that a portion of said food lies between said third and fourth transducers; and a processing device operable to receive an output from said second ultrasonic transducer representative of the transmission characteristics through said fluid and to receive an output from said fourth ultrasonic transducer representative of the transmission characteristic through said fluid and said food, said processing device being operable to process said output signals from said second and said fourth transducers to obtain a signal which exhibits at least one transmission characteristic of said food and not said fluid.
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Specification