US 12,127,705 B2
Beverage preparation machine with capsule recognition
Bertrand Guyon, Pontarlier (FR); Peter Jans, Houthalen (BE); and Michael Fournier, Veysonnaz (CH)
Assigned to Societe des Produits Nestle S.A., Vevey (CH)
Appl. No. 17/312,533
Filed by SOCIETE DES PRODUITS NESTLE S.A., Vevey (CH)
PCT Filed Dec. 10, 2019, PCT No. PCT/EP2019/084300
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jun. 10, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/120424, PCT Pub. Date Jun. 18, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 18211992 (EP), filed on Dec. 12, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2022/0053967 A1, Feb. 24, 2022
Int. Cl. A47J 31/44 (2006.01); A47J 31/36 (2006.01); A47J 31/52 (2006.01)
CPC A47J 31/4492 (2013.01) [A47J 31/3676 (2013.01); A47J 31/52 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A machine for preparing and dispensing a beverage comprising:
an extraction unit for extracting a beverage ingredient capsule to form the beverage;
a control unit for controlling the extraction unit to extract such capsule;
an outlet for dispensing the beverage formed by extracting such capsule to a user-receptacle to collect the beverage,
a color recognition module for recognizing a color of a capsule inserted in the machine, the color recognition module comprising a color sensor for sensing a sample color of at least part of the surface of such capsule;
the color recognition module is configured to compare the sample color to at least one reference color by:
computing a HSL sample color vector of the sample color;
computing a hue distance between a hue component of the HSL sample color vector and a hue component of a HSL reference color vector of the at least one reference color,
computing a saturation distance between a saturation component of the HSL sample color vector and a saturation component of the HSL reference color vector,
computing a lightness distance between a lightness component of the HSL sample color vector and a lightness component of the HSL reference color vector, and
computing a HSL score with the hue distance, the saturation distance and the lightness distance to determine a match between the color sample and the at least one reference color.