Patent attributes
A cooking appliance and a method of controlling a cooking appliance are provided. The cooking appliance has a cooking utensil support structure configured as a sensor for determining a cooking utensil characteristic, such as the size and/or presence of a cooking utensil. The cooking utensil support structure can include a gap and an electrical characteristic can be detected at the gap. The detected electrical characteristic can be used to determine a cooking utensil characteristic. Control of the cooking appliance can be based on the detected electrical characteristic or the determined cooking utensil characteristic. The cooking appliance can be controlled to improve cooking performance, such as regulate the amount of heat supplied by a heat source based on the size and/or presence of a cooking utensil, and/or to initiate an alert condition.
