Hob Touch Strip Positioning for Freely Placed Cooking Vessel Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing hobs with freely placeable cooking vessels face challenges in providing a simple and reliable operating method with manageable design effort, ensuring safe and intuitive operation.
Innovation Solution
A hob design featuring an elongated operating device with adjacent longitudinal strip areas, where touch sensors are arranged to form a touch strip that can be shifted or positioned within the strip area, allowing for intuitive power adjustment of hotplates based on cooking vessel position, and detection means to align the touch strip with the hotplate position, enabling easy operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If fixed longitudinal stripe areas with touch sensors are provided for each hotplate, then the operating device structure is simple and manageable, but it becomes difficult to ensure safe and intuitive operation when cooking vessels are placed freely on the heating area
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the dynamics principle by making the assignment of longitudinal stripe areas to hotplates dynamic rather than fixed. The control device automatically detects the position of cooking vessels on the heating area and dynamically assigns the nearest longitudinal stripe area to control the corresponding hotplate. This allows the operating device to adapt to freely placed cooking vessels while maintaining a simple fixed structure of longitudinal stripe areas, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and device complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple independent longitudinal stripe areas are provided for each hotplate, then each hotplate can be controlled independently, but the design effort and complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the universality principle by making the longitudinal stripe areas serve multiple functions. Each longitudinal stripe area can control different hotplates depending on the detected position of cooking vessels. Instead of providing dedicated stripe areas for each hotplate, the same stripe areas are reused dynamically to control different hotplates based on real-time vessel positions, thereby achieving hotplate control flexibility while reducing design effort and complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies the parameter changes principle by changing the assignment parameter of longitudinal stripe areas based on detected vessel positions. The control device modifies which hotplate a longitudinal stripe area controls by detecting the position of cooking vessels and assigning the nearest stripe area to the corresponding hotplate. This dynamic parameter change allows versatile hotplate control without increasing the physical structure or design complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the assignment of longitudinal stripe areas to hotplates is fixed, then the operating device is simple to design, but it cannot adapt to freely placed cooking vessels on the heating area
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the feedback principle by implementing a detection and assignment mechanism that continuously monitors the position of cooking vessels on the heating area and automatically assigns the nearest longitudinal stripe area to control the corresponding hotplate. The control device receives feedback from vessel position detection and dynamically adjusts the stripe area-to-hotplate assignment, enabling adaptation to freely placed vessels while keeping the operating device structure simple and manageable.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution ensures safe and reliable operation by allowing operators to easily adjust power levels based on cooking vessel position, enhancing user experience and operational efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
These can be arranged in a control area and can be arranged, for example, as capacitive touch sensors below a control panel
Implementation Method 2
a large number of heating devices are arranged as heating means in a heating area
Implementation Method 3
heating devices are arranged as heating means in a heating area
Data Source
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AI summary
A hob has a hob plate with a heating area and with an operating area including an elongate operating device therein, which has two longitudinal strip areas arranged next to one another and extending one another. A plurality of touch sensors are arranged next to one another in the longitudinal direction below the longitudinal strip areas, with the two longitudinal strip areas arranged next to one another being separated from one another by an area without a touch sensor. Each touch sensor is associated with an illuminant to provide a lighted indication of its position. In each longitudinal stripe area, a number of touch sensors, which is less than the total number of touch sensors in this longitudinal stripe area, can be activated next to one another without interruption to form a touch-sensitive touch strip in such a way that a left-hand end area and/or a right-hand end area has an inactive or non-touch-sensitive Free area of the longitudinal strip area is formed.