This high-frequency treatment device includes: a heating chamber configured to accommodate a heating target; a high-frequency power generator; a feeder; a detector; a controller; and a storage. The high-frequency power generator generates high-frequency power having a frequency in a predetermined frequency band. The feeder supplies incident microwave power corresponding to the high-frequency power to the heating chamber. The detector detects at least one of the incident microwave power and reflected microwave power that is included in the incident microwave power and returns from the heating chamber to the feeder. The controller controls heating of the heating target by controlling the high-frequency power generator. The storage stores, together with time elapsed from the start of heating, information detected by the detector. The controller causes the high-frequency power generator to repeatedly generate, on a per frequency basis, the high-frequency power having a plurality of frequencies for the heating. The controller properly controls heating of the heating target on the basis of a temporal change in one of the reflected microwave power, a reflection ratio, and a microwave power difference.

The high-frequency treatment device according to one embodiment of the present disclosure includes: a heating chamber that accommodates a heating target; an oscillator; at least one feeder; a detector; and a controller. The oscillator generates high-frequency power having an arbitrary frequency in a predetermined frequency band. At least one feeder supplies incident microwave power based on the high-frequency power to the heating chamber. The detector detects the incident microwave power and reflected microwave power returning from the heating chamber to at least one feeder. The controller causes the oscillator to execute a frequency sweep and measures a reflection characteristic based on the incident microwave power and the reflected microwave power for each heating condition including a frequency. The controller determines, based on a reflection variation range indicating a change in the reflection characteristic for each heating condition, a heating condition to be used next. According to the present aspect, various heating targets can be optimally heated.

An electromagnetic heater for heating an irregularly shaped object, including: a cavity within which an object is to be placed; at least one feed which feeds UHF or microwave energy into the cavity; and a controller that controls one or more characteristics of the cavity or energy to assure that the UHF or microwave energy is deposited uniformly in the object within ±30% over at least 80% of the volume of the object.

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.

A dielectric constant estimation device which can estimate a dielectric constant of an object with high accuracy in a non-contact state even when a shape of the object is indefinite, and a microwave heating device equipped with the dielectric constant estimation device. The dielectric constant estimation device includes a transmitting antenna and a receiving antenna which can switch a polarized wave of an electromagnetic wave between a TE wave and a TM wave. Based on a reflected wave of the TE wave and a reflected wave of the TM wave from the object, the dielectric constant estimation device calculates a TM/TE reflection ratio, and compares the calculated TM/TE reflection ratio and dielectric constant data of theoretical values stored in a memory part in advance in the form of database with each other so that a dielectric constant of the object is estimated.

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.

An electromagnetic cooking device and method of controlling the same is provided herein. The cooking device has a cavity in which popcorn is placed and a plurality of RF feeds configured to introduce electromagnetic radiation into the cavity for popping the popcorn. A controller is provided and is configured to: analyze forward and backward power at the plurality of RF feeds to calculate efficiency; determine and monitor a coefficient of variation of the efficiency; detect a popping state of the popcorn based on changes in the coefficient of variation; and adjust a power level of the electromagnetic radiation in response to detection of the popping state.

A microwave heating device includes radiating portions adapted to radiate microwaves to the heating chamber and is operated according to operational configurations that differ in frequency or in phase shift(s) between the radiated microwaves. A learning procedure is executed by sequentially operating the radiating portions in several operational configurations. Energy efficiency data are calculated for those operational configurations. An operating frequency is selected based on energy efficiency data. An operational configuration with a maximum energy efficiency at the selected operating frequency is taken as a reference. A heating procedure is executed by sequentially operating the radiating portions in operational configurations having the selected operating frequency and respective phase shift(s) chosen around the respective phase shift(s) of the reference operational configuration. The phase shift(s) of each chosen operational configuration may have a phase shift distance from the respective phase shift(s) of the reference operational configuration, such that, in the space of the phase shifts, the reference operational configuration is surrounded by the chosen operational configurations.

A microwave heating apparatus includes a cavity arranged to receive a load. At least one microwave generator is configured to feed a plurality of microwaves into the cavity. At least one image-capturing device and a control unit is adapted to obtain load volume information of the load within the cavity based on information recorded by the image-capturing device about at least one portion of the load, obtain load density information using at least one of a user input and information recorded by the image-capturing device about at least one portion of the load, determine load mass information based upon the load volume information and the load density information, determine a heating pattern based upon the load mass information and control the at least one microwave generator to provide the heating pattern within the cavity.

A microwave treatment device comprises: a heating chamber that accommodates a heating target, a microwave generator that generates a microwave; a feeding unit that supplies the microwave to the heating chamber; a reflected microwave power detector that detects a reflected microwave power returned to the microwave generator; a controller that controls the microwave generator; and a storage unit. The storage unit stores a level of the reflected microwave power detected by the reflected microwave power detector together with a frequency of the microwave supplied to the heating chamber and an elapsed time after a start of heating the heating target. The controller causes the microwave generator to execute a frequency sweep over a specified frequency band and determines that the heating target is in a boiling state based on a temporal change in a value that is obtained based on the reflected microwave power at each frequency.