Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Shinji Kondoh

Haruo Terai

Shuji Abe

Hidetaka Yabuuchi

Osamu Eguchi

Yumiko Hara

Yasumichi Kobayashi

Seiji Yamaguchi

Takayuki Urata

Hideki Omori

Hidekazu Yamashita

Youji Uetani

Masafumi Sadahira

Tetsuo Obata

Machiko Azuma

A heating apparatus includes a heating element having a conductor, at least a part of which is an electrically closed circuit along which an eddy current flows; a container for accommodating the heating element; a magnetic field induction section for induction-heating the heating element; and a high frequency power supply device for supplying high frequency power to the magnetic field induction section. The heating element is induction-heated by an AC magnetic field generated by the magnetic field induction section.

Induction heating of heating element

A cooking apparatus such as a rice cooker includes means for obtaining a value or a combination of values indicative of an amount of food that is to be cooked, and a fuzzy inference section for operating on that value or combination of values to determine a level of heating power to be supplied to a heater element of the apparatus, during at least one part of the cooking process. The amount-indicating value can be obtained for example as a rate of change of temperature of the food while it is being heated to boiling point. The apparatus can further be configured to determine a plurality of cooking control parameters, by fuzzy inference operation, based on a specified degree of final hardness of the cooked food, which can be selectively inputted by the user.

Cooking apparatus providing accurate control of cooking process and

A zone of a floor to be cleaned is subdivided into a plurality of blocks, the position of each block is memorized in a memory of a self-running cleaning apparatus, and the status of each block such that a wall or an obstacle is placed on the block or the block is passed by the cleaning apparatus thereon is also memorized in the memory. The cleaning apparatus moves across the blocks having neither wall nor obstacle thereon and which have not been passed by the cleaning apparatus on the basis of a predetermined priority order in running direction.

Self-running cleaning control method

A vacuum cleaner with fuzzy control comprises a detector for detecting condition of sucking of dust, such as an amount of dust, a kind of dust and/or a kind of a surface of a floor to be cleaned. A fuzzy inference section responsive to the condition of sucking of dust determines an appropriate sucking force and controls the vacuum cleaner's sucking force through fuzzy inference.

Vacuum cleaner with fuzzy control

Washing machine

Self-running cleaning apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Kawanishi, Japan

Shinji Kondoh