Patent ID: 7478486
Filing Date: 2009-01-20
Classification: D06F

Abstract:
1. An appliance for drying clothing articles, the appliance comprising: a container for receiving the clothing articles; a motor for rotating the container about an axis; a heater for supplying heated air to the container during a dry cycle; a sensor for providing a signal indicative of moisture content of the clothing articles; memory for storing historical stop time data of respective dry cycles; a noise-redaction filter coupled to receive the signal indicative of moisture content to provide selectable filtering and generate a smoothed signal a timer for providing a signal indicative of elapsed time upon start of the dry cycle; a module responsive to the historical data in the memory for determining an initial estimate of the stop time of the dry cycle to be executed; and a processor for estimating the stop time of the dry cycle as the cycle is being executed, the estimation of the stop time based on a respective functional relationship of the smoothed signal, anti the timer signal, relative to one or more characteristics of the articles and one or more desired values of predetermined dry-cycle parameters selectable by a respective user of the dryer, the initial estimate of the stop time being superceded by the stop time estimated by the processor as the cycle is being executed.