Classifications

• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24F—SMOKERS' REQUISITES; MATCH BOXES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES
  • A24F40/00—Electrically operated smoking devices; Component parts thereof; Manufacture thereof; Maintenance or testing thereof; Charging means specially adapted therefor
  • A24F40/50—Control or monitoring
  • A24F40/53—Monitoring, e.g. fault detection
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24F—SMOKERS' REQUISITES; MATCH BOXES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES
  • A24F40/00—Electrically operated smoking devices; Component parts thereof; Manufacture thereof; Maintenance or testing thereof; Charging means specially adapted therefor
  • A24F40/40—Constructional details, e.g. connection of cartridges and battery parts
  • A24F40/46—Shape or structure of electric heating means
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24F—SMOKERS' REQUISITES; MATCH BOXES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES
  • A24F40/00—Electrically operated smoking devices; Component parts thereof; Manufacture thereof; Maintenance or testing thereof; Charging means specially adapted therefor
  • A24F40/50—Control or monitoring
• • A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
  • A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
  • A24F—SMOKERS' REQUISITES; MATCH BOXES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES
  • A24F40/00—Electrically operated smoking devices; Component parts thereof; Manufacture thereof; Maintenance or testing thereof; Charging means specially adapted therefor
  • A24F40/50—Control or monitoring
  • A24F40/51—Arrangement of sensors

Definitions

• Example aspects herein relate to aerosol generation from a consumable, and in particular to a method for an aerosol generation device, a computer program, a controller for an aerosol generation device and an aerosol generation device.
• aerosol generation devices with known types such as atomizers, vaporizers, electronic cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigalikes, etc. are used to heat aerosolisable substances as a reduced-risk or modified-risk device from conventional tobacco products.
• the aerosol generation device electrical power is supplied from an electrical power source to a heating arrangement in the aerosol generation device, to heat the aerosolisable substance.
• the aerosol generation device controls the supply of electrical power using a first switching element arranged in series with the heating arrangement, between terminals of the electrical power source.
• the method comprises disabling the heating arrangement upon detecting a fault.
• the at least one observable indicating that an amount of power is transferred to the heating arrangement may be more readily detected.
• the method is performed upon detecting that the device is coupled to an electrical power supply.
• a controller for an aerosol generation device arranged to perform, when in use, the method according to the first example aspect above.
• Figure 1 is a block diagram showing an example of electrical components of an aerosol generation device according to an example embodiment
• Figure 5 shows an example of a method for an aerosol generation device according to example embodiments.
• FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of electrical components of an aerosol generation device 10 according to an example embodiment.
• the aerosol generation device 10 comprises a controller 100, a heating arrangement 110, a first switching element 120, a second switching element 130, an electrical power source 140, and a charging arrangement 150.
• the controller 100 is arranged for controlling a state of the first switching element 120 and a state of the second switching element 130, to control the supply of electrical power to the heating arrangement 110.
• the electrical power source 140 is arranged for supplying electrical power to other components of the aerosol generation device 10, including the controller 100 and the heating arrangement 110.
• the electrical power source 140 comprises a battery 142 (e.g. a secondary battery such as a lithium-ion, nickel-metal hybrid or a non- rechargeable battery) and a battery protection circuit 144.
• a battery 142 e.g. a secondary battery such as a lithium-ion, nickel-metal hybrid or a non- rechargeable battery
• the battery protection circuit 144 may be omitted in some cases (for example with batteries not requiring a protection circuit), or the electrical power source 140 may instead be a connector couplable to an electrical power source external to the aerosol generation device 10 (e.g. a mains electricity power, a DC 5V electrical power source etc.), and which transfers the electrical power from the external source to the components of the aerosol generation device 10.
• the charging arrangement 150 is for supplying electrical power to re-charge the battery 142, from an electrical power source that is electrically coupled to the aerosol generation device. However, it would be understood that, in cases where the electrical power source 140 does not include a rechargeable element (e.g. the battery 142 is not rechargeable or is omitted), the charging arrangement 150 may be omitted as well.
• the charging arrangement 150 comprises a connector 152 couplable to an external electrical power source and a charging IC 154 for controlling the supply of power from the external electrical power source to the battery 142, optionally comprising a transformer for transforming the voltage/current characteristics of the electrical power supplied by the external power source.
• the consumable may be defined as a tobacco stick, or the aerosol substrate may be defined as a flavor release medium.
• the aerosol substrate such as tobacco may be treated with a vaporizing agent.
• the vaporizing agent may improve the generation of vapor from the aerosol substrate.
• the vaporizing agent may include, for example, a polyol such as glycerol, or a glycol such as propylene glycol.
• the aerosol substrate may contain no tobacco, or even no nicotine, but instead may contain naturally or artificially derived ingredients for flavoring, volatilization, improving smoothness, and/or providing other pleasurable effects.
• the aerosol substrate such as tobacco may comprise one or more humectants to retain moisture, such as glycol(s).
• the heating arrangement 110 comprises a heater for converting the electrical power received from the electrical power source into thermal energy to heat the consumable, and a temperature sensor for sensing a temperature of the heating arrangement 110.
• the heater may be any type of heater, such as conduction-based or convection-based heaters (e.g. a coil, a coil-and-wick combination), as the present invention is not limited to specific kind of heaters.
• the temperature sensed by the temperature sensor is obtained by the controller 100, as shown by the arrow on Figure 1.
• the heating arrangement 110 may comprise additional elements, such as a converter (e.g. a booster circuit) for converting the electrical power received from the electrical power source 140 into an electrical power suitable to heat the aerosol substrate.
• a converter e.g. a booster circuit
• the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130 may each be a transistor, such as Field-effect transistors (FET) (e.g. Si MOSFETs, GaN MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs, etc.), a Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT), insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), thyristors, or other known types of switching element.
• FET Field-effect transistors
• BJT Bipolar Junction Transistor
• IGBT insulated-gate bipolar transistor
• thyristors thyristors
• Figure 1 shows the heating arrangement 110, the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130 to be arranged in this order, between the terminals of the electrical power source
• the order shown on Figure 1 is merely exemplary, and may be varied.
• the heating arrangement 110 may be placed between the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130, both the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130 may be placed before (i.e. closer to the terminal of the electrical power source labelled +) the heating arrangement 110, the second switching element 130 may be placed before the first switching element 120, etc.
• the controller 100 may comprise one or more processor (e.g. a single/multiple core CPU, microprocessor(s) etc.), one or more working memories (e.g. random-access memory, RAM, flash memory etc.) and one or more non-volatile instructions stores (e.g. read-only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable PROM (EPROM), electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM), flash memory, etc.) storing computer-readable instructions, whereby the processor(s) executing the computer-readable instructions in the instruction store(s) to control the state of the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130.
• the controller may be implemented, in part or in full, as hardware components such as integrated circuitry (IC).
• controller 100 may include one or more units or modules to perform various operations.
• the controller 100 may include a microcontroller, MCU, and a separate hardware monitoring circuit.
• the MCU is arranged for controlling the state of the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130 to control the temperature of the heating arrangement 110
• the hardware monitoring circuit is arranged for disabling the first switching element 120 and/or the second switching element 130 if a fault is detected in the aerosol generation device 10.
• the controller 100 is a microcontroller, MCU.
• the controller 100 is arranged for controlling the state of the first switching element 120 and the state of the second switching element 130, to control the supply of electrical power to the heating arrangement 110.
• the controller 100 (or a signal generator included in or controlled by the controller 100) generates a control signal to cause the first switching element 120 to be ON or OFF, as shown by the arrow on Figure 1.
• a switching element is considered to be ON when electrical current is allowed to flow through the switching element, and a switching element is considered to be OFF when the electrical current is prevented from flowing through the switching element.
• the controller 100 generates a control signal to cause the second switching element to be ON or OFF, as shown by the arrow on Figure 1.
• the controller 100 can control whether the heating arrangement 110 is supplied with electrical power, by controlling the state of the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130.
• a user desiring that an aerosol to be generated from the consumable can initiate the heating of the consumable to obtain the aerosol, for example by operating/manipulating the aerosol generation device or e.g. a button/switch provided on the aerosol generation device. This indicates the beginning of an aerosol generation session.
• the controller 100 thus controls the temperature of the heating arrangement 110 to a desired temperature at which the aerosolisable substance generates the aerosol (e.g. by evaporation, sublimation etc.).
• the desired temperature may be a temperature in the range of 200-250 °C.
• the controller 100 determines that the heating arrangement 110 should no longer be heated (e.g. at the end of an aerosol generation session such as when a user stops using aerosol generation device 10, the aerosolisable substance is depleted, etc.), the controller controls the first switching element 120 and the second switching element 130 to an OFF state, allowing the heating arrangement 110 to cool down.
• the controller 100 obtains a first temperature value T1 of the heating arrangement 110 from the temperature sensor.
• the controller 100 determines whether the first temperature value T1 is equal to or lower than a predetermined threshold.
• the threshold may be set at a value which ensures that an increase in temperature may be detected over a certain time period (e.g. the first time period or the second time period described below).
• the threshold may be set to be 50°C, or 100°C.
• the controller 100 controls the first switching element 120 to be ON, and the second switching element 130 to be OFF during a first time period.
• the controller 100 waits for the first time period to elapse.
• the controller 100 may trigger a timer equal to the first time period when controlling the first switching element 120 to be ON and the second switching element 130 to be OFF, and the controller 100 may wait for the timer to expire.
• the controller proceeds to step S112.
• step S112 the controller 100 obtains a second temperature value T2 of the heating arrangement 110 from the temperature sensor. The controller 100 then proceeds to step S114.
• step S116 the controller 100 detects a fault in the second switching element 130 which causes the second switching element to be ON or in a shorted state, and proceeds to step S118.
• the controller 100 may generate a signal to disconnect the heating arrangement 110 from the electrical power source 140, or the controller 100 may cause the heating arrangement 110 to be bypassed (e.g. by shunt resistor in parallel with the heating arrangement 110) so that electrical power is not supplied to the heating arrangement 110.
• step S108 if there is a fault causing the first switching element 120 to remain in an ON state or in a shorted state, the temperature of the heating arrangement 110 will increase during the second time period.
• step S122 the controller 100 waits for the second time period to elapse.
• the process at this step is the same as the process described in step S110 for the first time period. Then, the controller 100 proceeds to step S124.
• step S124 the controller 100 obtains a third temperature value T3 of the heating arrangement 110 from the temperature sensor, then proceeds to step S126.
• the controller 100 determines that a temperature increase occurs during the second time period, which is an example of an observable event indicating that an amount of power is transferred to the heating arrangement 110. Accordingly, the controller 100 detects a fault in the first switching element 120 which causes the first switching element 120 to be ON or in a shorted state. The controller 100 then proceeds to step S118.
• Step S126:NO the controller 100 determines that the third temperature value T3 is not higher than the second temperature value T2 (Step S126:NO). If, on the other hand, the controller 100 determines that the third temperature value T3 is not higher than the second temperature value T2 (Step S126:NO), the process ends as this indicates that no fault causing the first switching element 120 to be ON or in a shorted state is detected.
• the controller 100 can determine that an amount of power is transferred to the heating arrangement if a current is detected to flow through the shunt resistor 162. Accordingly, a current flowing through the shunt resistor 162 is an example of an observable event indicating that an amount of power is transferred from the electrical power source 140 to the heating arrangement 110.
• steps S102 to S106 are omitted, and the process starts at step S108.
• the controller controls the first switching element 120 to be ON and the second switching element 130 to be OFF during a first time period.
• step S108 the controller proceeds to step S210, where the controller 100 obtains a first voltage value VI across the shunt resistor 162. The controller 100 then proceeds to step S212.
• the controller 100 determines whether the first voltage value VI is equal to zero.
• the controller 100 may be arranged for determining whether the first voltage value VI is greater than 0.3V (or lower than -0.3V), although this voltage value is provided purely as a non-limiting example.
• step S224 the controller 100 determines whether the second voltage value V2 is equal to zero.

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• 2022
  • 2022-08-25 CN CN202280058913.1A patent/CN118076257A/zh active Pending
  • 2022-08-25 US US18/684,060 patent/US20250024890A1/en active Pending
  • 2022-08-25 JP JP2024512182A patent/JP2024530282A/ja active Pending
  • 2022-08-25 EP EP22768826.4A patent/EP4395590A1/de active Pending
  • 2022-08-25 WO PCT/EP2022/073668 patent/WO2023031010A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2022-08-25 KR KR1020247007164A patent/KR20240046735A/ko active Pending

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