Smart Professional Oven

The aim of the research project "Study, design and prototyping of an innovative professional restaurant oven with intelligent cooking" is automatic and intelligent management of steam generator and steam exhaust valve, which are currently piloted manually on the basis of operator’s experience.

The initial idea was to provide the cooking chamber with a humidity sensor and, on the basis of the values of measured temperature and humidity, take a decision to drive the steam generator and the steam exhaust valve.
However, a further analysis has highlighted the criticality of humidity measurement at high temperatures, confirmed by the impossibility to find on the market a low cost humidity sensor with operating temperatures at least 300 -350°C.
Therefore it has been decided to proceed by including additional thermocouples near the steam exhaust valve (outer side of the cooking chamber) and in proximity of the conduit from which steam enters in the chamber (inner side of the cooking chamber).

On the bases of these additional information beyond those already existing, a proper PC-based real-time intelligent system for sensor information acquisition and control of actuators activity in order to guarantee certain automatic cooking capabilities. The prototype will make use of already existing electronics for professional ovens in Moretti Forni s.p.a. and suitable interfaces will be developed on purpose to exploit such a resource.