Aerosol Generating Device and Method of Controlling Aerosol Generating Device

This application is based on and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2024-0083123, filed on Jun. 25, 2024, and 10-2024-0111625, filed on Aug. 20, 2024, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Various embodiments according to the disclosure relate to an aerosol generating device and a method of controlling the aerosol generating device.

Recently, there has been an increasing demand for alternative methods of solving the shortcomings of general cigarettes. For example, there has been an increasing demand for a system that generates an aerosol by heating a cigarette or an aerosol generating material by using an aerosol generating device, rather than a method of generating an aerosol by burning a cigarette.

Two main methods for controlling an operation of the aerosol generating device include a control method based on a user's puff number and a control method based on an operation time.

According to the control method based on the puff number, heating ends when the accumulated puff number reaches a preset puff number, and accordingly, the control method may also provide a smoking time less than the smoking time desired by a user. In addition, according to the control method based on the operation time, once heating starts, the heating ends as the preset time elapses even when a user does not perform a puff motion, and accordingly, there may be a case where the cigarette has to be discarded due to the end of heating even though an aerosol generating material in the cigarette is not sufficiently exhausted.

When a heater heats an aerosol generating substrate only for a preset time, a user may not be able to continue smoking even when the user can continue smoking by using the remaining amount of the aerosol generating substrate.

Also, a method of providing additional puffs based on a vaporization amount and remaining amount of the aerosol generating substrate or controlling the heating time of a heater does not consider a transfer amount of an effective ingredient of an aerosol generating article, and accordingly, there is a problem that a user's smoking taste sense is reduced when taking additional puffs.

Also, providing additional puffs based on a user's puff strength or inhalation intensity has a problem that not only is there a deviation in provision of additional puffs for each user, but also it is difficult for the user to easily check the provision of additional puffs.

An embodiment according to the disclosure provides an aerosol generating device and a method of controlling the aerosol generating device, which may increase user reliability by uniformly providing additional puffs based on the time for reaching a preset puff number without causing a decrease in smoking taste when taking additional puffs by considering the transfer amount of the effective ingredient included in an aerosol generating article.

Problems to be solved through the embodiments of the disclosure are not limited to the problems described above, and problems not described may be clearly understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the embodiments belong from the present specification and the attached drawings.

Additional aspects will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the presented embodiments of the disclosure.

According to an embodiment, an aerosol generating device includes a heater configured to heat at least part of an aerosol generating article including an aerosol generating material, a storage storing a temperature profile of the heater and an operation time of the aerosol generating device, an output unit configured to output a notification corresponding to an operation state of the aerosol generating device, a puff sensor configured to detect a user's puff during the operation time, and a controller configured to control an output of the notification based on at least one of the operation time and a previously determined puff number, and control supplying of power of the heater to correspond to the temperature profile.

The controller determines an additional puff number provided in addition to the previously determined puff number based on a time taken to reach a preset puff number within the previously determined puff number, and controls the output unit to output a notification corresponding to the determined additional puff number.

The controller may determine the additional puff number when the time taken to reach the preset puff number is less than a first threshold time within the previously determined puff number.

The controller may calculate an average puff time based on the time taken to reach the preset puff number, and determine the additional puff number based on a remaining operation time obtained by subtracting the time taken to reach the preset puff number from the operation time and on the average puff time.

The average puff time may be a cumulative average value of time including an inhalation time of the user and an interval between inhalations.

The storage may store the average puff time previously calculated according to an accumulated use of the aerosol generating device.

The controller may determine the additional puff number based on the average puff time stored in the storage.

The temperature profile may include a plurality of temperature profiles, and the controller may determine the additional puff number differently according to the plurality of temperature profiles.

The plurality of temperature profiles may include a first mode for controlling the supplying of power of the heater according to a first temperature profile having a first average temperature; and a second mode for controlling the supplying of power of the heater according to a second temperature profile having a second average temperature higher than the first average temperature.

The controller may assign a weight to the first mode rather than to the second mode when determining the additional puff number.

The controller may cause the output unit to output a remaining puff number according to the previously determined puff number.

The controller may cause the output unit to output the determined additional puff number, when the additional puff number is determined.

The controller may cause the output unit to output a final remaining puff number obtained by adding the determined additional puff number to the remaining puff number.

The controller may determine the additional puff number based on a minimum transfer amount of the aerosol generating material according to the user's puff during the operation time.

The controller may determine the additional puff number based on intensity of the user's puff during the operation time.

The controller may determine the additional puff number as a minimum number when the time taken to reach the preset puff number within the previously determined puff number is less than a first threshold time.

According to another embodiment, a method of controlling an aerosol generating device includes determining a time taken to reach a preset puff number within a previously determined puff number, determining an additional puff number provided additionally to the previously determined puff number based on the time taken to reach the preset puff number, and outputting a notification corresponding to the determined additional puff number.

According to another embodiment, provided is a recording medium having recorded thereon a program for performing, on a computer, a method of controlling an aerosol generating device.

Hereinafter, embodiments will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, and the same or similar components will be assigned the same reference numerals regardless of the reference numerals in the drawings, and the same descriptions thereof will be omitted. With regard to the description of the drawings, like reference numerals may be used to represent like or related elements.

The suffixes “module”, “-er”, and “-or” for the components used in the following description are given or used interchangeably by considering only the ease of writing the description, and do not have distinct meanings or roles in themselves. The suffix “module” or “unit”, as used herein, may include a unit implemented as hardware, software, or firmware. For example, the suffix “module” or “unit” may be interchangeably used with the term a “logic”, a “logical block”, a “component”, or a “circuit”. The “module” or “unit” may be an integrally formed component, a minimum unit of the component performing one or more functions, or a part of the minimum unit. For example, the “module” or “unit” may be implemented in the form of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

In addition, when describing the embodiments of the disclosure, the detailed description of the related known art, which may obscure the subject matter of the embodiments, may be omitted. Also, the accompanying drawings are only intended to facilitate understanding of the embodiments described herein, and the spirit of the disclosure is not limited by the accompanying drawings and should be understood to include all changes, equivalents or alternatives included in the spirit and scope of the disclosure.

Although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements or components, these elements or components should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element or component from another element or component.

When an element is referred to as being “connected to” or “coupled to” another element, it may be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directly connected to” or “directly coupled to” another element, there are no intervening elements present.

The singular forms are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

Various embodiments of the present disclosure may be implemented as software including one or more instructions stored in a storage medium (e.g., a memory) readable by a machine (e.g., an aerosol generating device). For example, a processor (e.g., a controller) of the machine (e.g., the aerosol generating device) may call at least one instruction among one or more instructions stored from the storage medium and execute the at least one instruction. This makes it possible for the machine to be operated to perform at least one function according to the called at least one instruction. Examples of the one or more instructions may include codes created by a compiler, or codes executable by an interpreter. A machine-readable storage medium may be provided as a non-transitory storage medium. The ‘non-transitory storage medium’ is a tangible device and only means that it does not contain a signal (e.g., electromagnetic waves). This term does not distinguish a case in which data is stored semi-permanently in a storage medium from a case in which data is temporarily stored.

In the present disclosure, a direction of the aerosol generating devicemay be defined based on an orthogonal coordinate system. The x-axis direction in the orthogonal coordinate system may be defined as a left-right direction of the aerosol generating device. The y-axis direction may be defined as a front-back direction of the aerosol generating device. The z-axis direction may be defined as an upward and downward direction of the aerosol generating device.

is a block diagram of the aerosol generating deviceaccording to an embodiment.

According to an embodiment, the aerosol generating devicemay include a power supply, the controller, a sensor unit, an output unit, an input unit, a communication unit, a memory, and/or heaterand. However, it may be understood by those skilled in the art that some of the components shown inmay be omitted or new components may be added, according to the design of the aerosol generating device.

According to an embodiment, the sensor unitmay sense a state of the aerosol generating deviceor a state of the surroundings of the aerosol generating deviceand may transmit information corresponding to the sensed state to the controller. For example, the sensor unitmay include a temperature sensor, a puff sensor, an insertion detection sensor, a reuse detection sensor, an overwetting detection sensor, a cigarette identification sensor, a cartridge detection sensor, a cap detection sensor, and/or a movement detection sensor. The sensor unitmay further include various sensors, such as a liquid remaining amount sensor for detecting the liquid remaining amount of a cartridge and an immersion sensor for detecting immersion of the aerosol generating device.

According to an embodiment, the temperature sensor may detect the heating temperature of the heaterand. The aerosol generating devicemay include a separate temperature sensor for detecting respective temperatures of the heaterand, or the heaterandmay serve as a temperature sensor. For example, the temperature sensor may be used to measure an impedance of the heater. The impedance of the heatermay be correlated with the temperature of the heater. The temperature sensor may measure a current and/or voltage applied to the heater(or an induction coil). Based on the measured current and/or voltage, the impedance for the heatermay be calculated. The controllermay estimate the temperature of the heater, based on the calculated impedance.

For example, the temperature sensor may include a resistive element (e.g., a thermistor) whose resistance value changes in response to a change in temperatures of the heaterand. The temperature sensor may output a signal corresponding to the resistance value of the resistive element, and the controllermay detect the temperatures and/or temperature changes of the heaterand, based on the signal corresponding to the resistance value.

As another example, the temperature sensor may include a sensor for detecting the resistance values of the heaterand. The temperature sensor may output signals corresponding to the resistance values of the heaterand, and the controllermay detect the temperatures and/or temperature changes of the heaterand, based on the signals corresponding to the resistance values.

According to an embodiment, the temperature sensor may detect a temperature of the power supply. The temperature sensor may be disposed adjacent to the power supply. For example, the temperature sensor may be attached to one surface of the power supply(e.g., a battery) and/or mounted on one surface of a printed circuit board. For example, the aerosol generating devicemay include a power protection circuit module (PCM), and the temperature sensor may be disposed adjacent to the power supplytogether with the power PCM.

According to an embodiment, the temperature sensor may be disposed inside a housing (not shown) of the aerosol generating deviceto detect an internal temperature of the housing.

According to an embodiment, the puff sensor may detect a puff of a user.

For example, the puff sensor may include a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor may output a signal corresponding to an internal pressure of the aerosol generating device, and the controllermay detect the puff of the user, based on the signal corresponding to the internal pressure. The internal pressure of the aerosol generating devicemay correspond to pressure of an airflow path along which gas flows. The puff sensor may be disposed to correspond to the airflow path along which gas flows, in the aerosol generating device.

As another example, the puff sensor may include a temperature sensor. When the user' puff occurs, a temporary temperature drop may occur in the airflow path, a space where an aerosol generating article is inserted (hereinafter, an insertion space), the heaterand, etc. The controllermay detect the user's puff, based on a signal corresponding to the temperature of the airflow path, etc. output from the temperature sensor.

As another example, the puff sensor may include both a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor. In this case, the temperature sensor may measure a temperature that is used to correct an internal pressure measured by the pressure sensor. For example, the puff sensor may correct the signal corresponding to the internal pressure, based on the temperature measured by the temperature sensor, and may output the corrected signal. As another example, the puff sensor may output the signal corresponding to the temperature measured by the temperature sensor, and the signal corresponding to the internal pressure measured by the puff sensor. In this case, the controllermay receive the signals, and may correct the signal corresponding to the internal pressure, based on the signal corresponding to the temperature.

As another example, the puff sensor may include a capacitance sensor. In the present disclosure, the capacitance sensor may also be referred to as a cap sensor or a capacitive sensor. When the user's puff occurs, a temperature change and/or aerosol flow may occur within the insertion space of the aerosol generating article, and accordingly, an internal permittivity of the insertion space may change. The controllermay detect the user's puff, based on a signal corresponding to the internal permittivity, etc. of the insertion space output by the temperature sensor.