Patent ID: 6845290

Claim:
An article of manufacture comprising a computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable program code means for causing a controller to control drying of clothing articles in a dryer appliance, the computer-readable program code means comprising: computer-readable program code means for receiving a signal indicative of moisture content of the clothing articles; computer-readable program code means for storing historical stop time data of respective dry cycles; computer-readable program code means for executing selectable filtering to the signal indicative of moisture content to generate a smoothed signal; computer-readable program code means for receiving a signal indicative of elapsed time upon start of the dry cycle; computer-readable program code means for determining an initial estimate of the stop time of the dry cycle to be executed based on the historical stop time data; and computer-readable program code means for estimating the stop time of the dry cycle as the cycle is being executed, the estimation based on a respective functional relationship of the smoothed signal, and the elapsed time signal, relative to one or more characteristics of the articles and one or more desired vales 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dry-cycle parameters selectable by a respective user of the dryer, the initial estimate of the stop time being superceded by the stop time estimated as the cycle is being executed.