Humidor Airing Event Detection With Cedar-Housed Sensors
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cigar humidors lack effective detection of airing events, leading to potential musty tastes and contamination, as existing sensors only alert on threshold breaches and not on prolonged absence of conditions or contamination from sensor materials.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a humidor monitoring system that uses time series anomaly detection with grammar-based compression to identify airing events and employs materials like Spanish Cedar for the sensor casing to prevent contamination, ensuring optimal humidity and temperature regulation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional threshold-based sensors are used to monitor humidity in humidors, then simple threshold breach alerts can be provided, but prolonged absence of airing events cannot be detected and contamination from sensor materials occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the sensor from direct contact with cigars by enclosing it in a cedar housing. This separation prevents the sensor materials from contaminating the cigars while the sensor continues to monitor environmental conditions through the housing walls.
Solution Approach 2:
The cedar housing acts as an intermediary between the sensor and the cigars. It allows humidity and temperature monitoring while preventing direct contamination, serving as a mediating structure that enables detection without harmful contact.
2Device complexity
If simple threshold alerts are used, then implementation is straightforward, but detection of prolonged absence of airing events is not possible
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads reference data about normal airing patterns and environmental signatures into the device. This preliminary preparation enables the microprocessor to automatically compare current conditions against known patterns and detect deviations indicating prolonged absence of airing events.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors environmental parameters, compares them against pre-loaded reference data, and provides feedback alerts when deviations indicate prolonged absence of airing. This closed-loop feedback enables detection of patterns that simple threshold alerts cannot capture.
3Measurement precision
If sensors are placed directly among cigars for monitoring, then optimal detection of environmental conditions is achieved, but contamination of cigars from sensor materials occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor is extracted from direct contact with cigars and placed inside a cedar housing. This physical separation eliminates the contamination pathway while the housing walls allow environmental parameters to be measured through them, maintaining monitoring precision without harmful contact.
Solution Approach 2:
The cedar housing acts as a thin-walled enclosure that allows environmental sensing through its walls while providing physical protection and contamination prevention. The housing material is selected to be permeable to environmental monitoring while impermeable to contamination transfer.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and apparatus are described herein related to an environmental monitoring system configured to avoid spoilage of goods by alerting a supervisor to hazardous conditions. A cigar humidor may be monitored by placing a cigar-shaped and cigar-sized sensor-equipped component made from metal or cedar wood inside the humidor amongst the cigars. The sensors monitor a plurality of parameters, of which relative humidity is of particular importance for cigar humidors. One hazardous condition, which is tracked by the system is the absence of an airing event for a period greater than a pre-configured interval. Once an airing event has been absent for a long enough time period, either a pre-alert or a full alert is being issued. The system offers multiple alternative ways of detecting airing events including time series anomaly discovery algorithms with grammar-based compression.