A solid-state heating apparatus may be incorporated into stand-alone appliances or other systems. The heating apparatus may include an impedance matching network coupled between an electrode and a radio-frequency (RF) source. The impedance matching network may be a variable impedance matching network that can be adjusted during the heating operation. The impedance matching network may include planar inductors formed from patterned conductive layers disposed either side of a substrate.

A microwave oven container may include a body for containing a liquid, an agitator projecting through a bottom wall of the body to agitate the liquid contained in the body, where the agitator includes a first end located in the body and a second end located exterior to the body. The second end of the agitator is able to couple with a turntable drive of a microwave oven to power movement of the agitator in response to rotation of the turntable drive. The container may also include a cage located within the body that substantially surrounds the first end of the agitator and includes a plurality of openings to allow liquid contained in the body to pass through the cage.

An oven may include a cooking chamber configured to receive a food product, a radio frequency (RF) heating system configured to provide RF energy into the cooking chamber using solid state electronic components to heat the food product, and a context awareness engine. The context awareness engine may include processing circuitry configured to receive RF signature data (including measurements of at least forward power and reflected power) associated with provision of RF energy into the cooking chamber, and to correlate an RF signature with a phenomenon observed with respect to the food product to define a signature profile for the phenomenon observed.

The invention relates to a system (100) for preparing at least one food product (1), comprising: a cooking chamber (10), in which at least one preparation area (5) is provided, wherein the at least one food product (1) can be positioned and prepared at the least one preparation area (5), at least one antenna arrangement (30) for supplying energy of electromagnetic energy (80) into the cooking chamber (10), whereby the at least one food product (1) can be heated, one transmission device (40) for operating the antenna arrangement (30), wherein at least one antenna (31) of the antenna arrangement (30) is oriented depending on the preparation area (5) and is operable according to at least one operation mode by the transmission device (40), so that a performance-optimized temperature zone distribution for heating the food product (1) can be generated.

A vending machine includes a main unit, and a secondary unit separate from and operably connected to the main unit. The secondary unit includes a refrigerated enclosure for housing pre-packaged food products and an oven for selectively cooking the pre-packaged food products. The main unit includes a transfer mechanism adapted to selectively remove one of the pre-packed food products from the enclosure and transfer the one pre-packaged food product to the oven for cooking. The transfer mechanism is further adapted to remove the cooked one pre-packaged food product from the oven and transfer the cooked one pre-packaged food product to a customer receiving area provided in the main unit.

A combined apparatus for heating, cooking, grilling and defrosting of foods of various kinds, depending on the type of foods to be treated from time to time and the duration of the foods treatment foreseen by each user of the same apparatus, where each hot treatment of foods may be effected either by heating or by microwaves only, or by heating and microwaves combined to each other. There are described in detail all the technical characteristics of the apparatus and the relative control circuits either for heating or for generating the microwaves. Advantages include use of a sole and single apparatus for hot treating the foods for providing for the heating, the cooking, the grilling and the defrosting of the same foods, instead of employing as it happens hitherto of single separated apparatuses for performing the same functions.

The present disclosure relates a door and a cooking appliance with the same. The door includes a first choke part installed at the inner surface of the door panel, and disposed at a vertical outer side of the open window; a second choke part installed at the inner surface of the door panel and disposed at the lateral outer side of the open window, wherein the second choke part is disposed between the open window and the connection mechanism; and a cover frame installed at the inner surface of the door panel, configured to accommodate the connection mechanism inside the cover frame and form side walls at the vertical outer side of the first choke part and the lateral outer side of the second choke part.

Disclosures of the present invention describe a coaxial microwave rotary applicator for material processing, mainly comprising: a waveguide unit, a microwave generator connected to one end of the waveguide unit, a bearing unit, a chamber, a rotary shaft, a driver unit, a sampling unit. The bearing unit is connected to the waveguide unit through a non-rotary ring, and the chamber is connected to a rotary ring of the bearing unit, and the microwave generator is configured for supplying a microwave to the chamber. By such arrangements, it is able to uniformly heat a specific material disposed in the chamber by driving the chamber to rotate. It is worth noting that, a user is allowed to clearly observe the processing progress via the sampling unit during the heating process of the specific material.

An apparatus for applying electromagnetic energy to an object in an energy application zone via at least one radiating element is disclosed. The apparatus may include at least one processor. The at least one processor may be configured to determine a value indicative of energy absorbable by the object at each of a plurality of frequencies and to cause the at least one radiating element to apply energy to the zone in at least a subset of the plurality of frequencies. Energy applied to the zone at each of the subset of frequencies may be a function of the absorbable energy value at each frequency.

An apparatus for applying electromagnetic energy to an object in an energy application zone via at least one radiating element is disclosed. The apparatus may include at least one processor. The at least one processor may be configured to determine a value indicative of energy absorbable by the object at each of a plurality of frequencies and to cause the at least one radiating element to apply energy to the zone in at least a subset of the plurality of frequencies. Energy applied to the zone at each of the subset of frequencies may be a function of the absorbable energy value at each frequency.