A microwave oven is provided including a cooking cavity for receiving food to be cooked, at least one microwave source for generating microwave energy inside the cooking cavity, and a supplemental heating system positioned to heat the food. The supplemental heating system includes at least one IR radiation source for generating IR radiation and a metallic mesh screen placed between the at least one IR radiation source and the cooking cavity for spatially distributing the IR radiation to uniformly project into the cooking cavity and minimizing microwave energy field losses. The metallic mesh screen includes a plurality of hexagonal apertures arranged in a honeycomb pattern. The distance between parallel sides of each one of the hexagonal apertures is Ax and the distance between each hexagonal aperture and each adjacent hexagonal aperture is Bx where Ax is less than or equal to about 3 times Bx.

A heating cooker includes a heating unit, a plate, an operation unit, a control unit, and a communication unit. The heating unit heats a first object to be heated. The plate is provided above the heating unit and the first object to be heated is to be placed on the plate. Operation information is input through the operation unit. The control unit controls the heating unit based on the operation information. The communication unit wirelessly communicates with an external device. The control unit controls the communication unit to transmit drive information to the external device. The drive information includes a drive state of the heating unit.

Disclosed herein includes a main body having a cooking chamber, a coupler having a pair of pressure surfaces and rotatably providedy, and a tray provided to be withdrawn from the cooking chamber by sliding movement and having a pair of seating projections each capable of being brought into contact with the pair of pressure surfaces and being rotatably pushed by the coupler. Therefore it is possible to easily switch between the rotatable state of the tray and the state of sliding movement of the tray.

A cooking system is disclosed. The cooking system is configured to prepare a selected food over a desired time period. The cooking system comprises a controller in communication with a heating apparatus and a user interface. The controller is configured to access a cooking database for the selected food and display a range of available times for the desired time period according to the cooking database. The controller is further operable to receive a selection of the desired time period from the user interface and control the heating apparatus to heat a food load to prepare the selected food to a predetermined quality in the desired time.

A control box for a cooking appliance includes a housing, in which at least one steam inlet and at least one steam outlet are present, wherein at least one grid structure for shielding high-frequency radiation is present in the housing, wherein the grid structure is arranged between the steam inlet and the steam outlet with respect to a flow path of the steam, and wherein the grid structure has a plurality of flow channels which form in sections a flow path to the steam outlet for the steam entering through the steam inlet. A cooking appliance is furthermore described.

A compact appliance includes a housing that has a planar bottom surface and sidewalls that define a cavity. A cooking assembly is operably coupled to the housing. The cooking assembly includes heat conductors that are proximate to the planar bottom surface of the housing. A heating plate is operably coupled to the heat conductors and define a portion of the planar bottom surface of the housing. A seal is disposed around and coupled to the heating plate. A tray is selectively disposed within the cavity defined by the housing and removably coupled to the heating plate. The tray includes a ceramic coating.

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 defrosting system includes an RF signal source, two electrodes proximate to a cavity within which a load to be defrosted is positioned, a transmission path between the RF signal source and the electrodes, and an impedance matching network electrically coupled along the transmission path between the output of the RF signal source and the electrodes. The system also includes power detection circuitry coupled to the transmission path and configured to detect reflected signal power along the transmission path. A system controller is configured to modify, based on the reflected signal power, a value of a variable passive component of the impedance matching network to reduce the reflected signal power. The impedance matching network may be a single-ended network or a double-ended network.

A continuous mode conveyor cooking appliance utilizing hot air jet impingement and microwave energy for cooking prepared foods. The approach envisions a central microwave unit with a hot air jet impingement oven unit on each side of the microwave section and a conveyor system to carry the food items completely through the appliance from one end to the other and with the two hot air jet impingement ovens equipped with a designed combination of hot air jet impingement jets and solid pins to act as a microwave attenuation system to reduce microwave exposure to cooking personnel to completely safe levels.

A radio-frequency (RF) heating system may include a removable drawer, which may be inserted under a fixed shelf of the RF heating system to form an enclosed cavity. The drawer may include conductive channels or side rails that may interface with the shelf of the defrosting system in order to electrically couple the drawer to the RF heating system. The drawer may include an electrode that is electrically coupled to ground or to a RF signal source when the drawer is inserted beneath the shelf. The shelf may include selectable electrodes of varying sizes. The RF heating system may use identification circuitry to recognize the type of drawer that has been inserted beneath the shelf. RF energy may be applied to the electrode of the drawer or the shelf to heat a load in the enclosed cavity.