AR Cooking Zone Guidance for Multi-Zone Heat Source Placement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cooking apparatuses with multiple heat sources struggle to guide users in optimally arranging food items across various cooking zones with different heating characteristics, leading to inefficient cooking and potential overcooking or undercooking.
Innovation Solution
A terminal device and cooking apparatus system that uses an imaging device, user interface, and controller to display augmented reality (AR) images of food items superimposed on recommended cooking zones, providing guidance on optimal placement, cooking amounts, and arrangement forms, while emitting light to specific zones based on recipes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple heat sources are used to create multiple cooking zones with different heating characteristics, then cooking versatility and efficiency are improved, but it becomes difficult for users to determine optimal food placement and cooking parameters
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an imaging device and display device as intermediaries between the user and the complex cooking system. The imaging device captures the cooking chamber state, and the display device presents this information in an intuitive visual format, mediating the interaction between user and multiple cooking zones
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses color-coded visual indicators to represent different cooking zones and their characteristics. Each cooking zone is displayed with distinct visual properties that indicate heating characteristics, making it easy for users to identify and select appropriate zones for different food items
2Manufacturing precision
If users manually determine cooking zone placement without guidance, then device complexity is reduced, but cooking precision and outcomes deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by capturing images of the cooking chamber, processing this visual information, and displaying it back to users with guidance indicators. This closed-loop feedback mechanism provides real-time guidance on optimal food placement based on the current cooking zone configuration
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a visual copy or representation of the physical cooking chamber through imaging and display. This virtual representation mirrors the actual cooking zones and allows users to plan and execute precise food placement by referencing the visual copy
3Ease of operation
If AR images are displayed to guide food placement, then ease of operation is improved, but device complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the imaging function, processing function, and display function into an integrated system. The terminal device combines these functions to generate and display AR images that overlay cooking zone information directly onto the visual representation of the cooking chamber
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein is a terminal device and a cooking apparatus capable of guiding an arrangement of a food item in the cooking apparatus comprising a plurality of heat sources to form a plurality of cooking zones having different heating characteristics. The terminal device comprises an imaging device, a user interface provided to display an image captured through the imaging device and provided to receive an input from a user, and a controller configured, in response to determining that the captured image corresponds to an image of a cooking apparatus and in response to obtaining food item information from the user, to control the user interface to display an augmented reality (AR) image of the food item superimposed on a recommended cooking zone among a plurality of cooking zones of the cooking apparatus.