Patent ID: 8775111

Claim:
A method for capturing a cooling transfer function for a thermally-isolated, self-heating device, the method comprising: performing a first heat-up cycle by providing power to a self-heating thermistor of the device, wherein the self-heating thermistor is configured to produce heat and measure temperatures of the device when power is provided to the self-heating thermistor; performing a plurality of heat-up/cool-down cycles, each heat-up/cool-down cycle including a heat-up cycle and a cool-down cycle, wherein each of the cool-down cycles of the plurality of the heat-up/cool-down cycles has a particular cool-down delay duration which is different than cool-down delay durations of other cool-down cycles of the plurality of heat-up/cool-down cycles, wherein a performance of each heat-up/cool-down cycle includes: performing a particular cool-down cycle, wherein performing the particular cool-down cycle comprises: deactivating the self-heating thermistor for the particular cool-down duration of the particular cool-down cycle; performing a particular heat-up cycle upon an expiration of the particular cool-down duration of the particular cool-down cycle, wherein performing the particular heat-up cycle comprises: activating the self-heating thermistor by providing a level of power to the self-heating thermistor; and measuring a temperature at the beginning of the particular heat-up cycle upon activating the self-heating thermistor; and obtaining a data point which includes the particular cool-down duration of the particular cool-down cycle and the temperature measured at the beginning of the particular heat-up cycle; and determining the cooling transfer function based upon obtained data points which include cool-down durations of the cool-down cycles and temperatures measured at the beginning of the heat-up cycles.