TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to pet feeder. Particularly, but not exclusively, the present disclosure is directed towards a smart pet feeder capable of timely supplying required quantity of food for pet.

BACKGROUND

In today’s world pets are considered as indispensable companions of human being as a result of high living standards and aging populations of human being. The pet owners are increasingly humane in treating pets, for example, taking care of pets at incredibly high prices in both spiritual and physical dimensions. Passionate pet owners always take care of the pets by carefully nurturing the pets and feeding nutritious food to the pets in timely manner. However, pet owners are being engaged in various activities day by day, thus get little time to look after the pets at home. Consequently, the pets are suffering from nutrition deficiency in terms of food and water due to lack of timely supply of food and water.
With the ongoing efforts to overcome the problems associated with feeding pets in timely manner, a number of solutions have been proposed. One such solution provides pet feeders that automate food delivering process and the feeding process. Although such automatic pet feeders partially eliminate the requirement of manually supplying food in terms of feeding the pets. However, such pet feeders do not provide any solutions to supplying a specific quantity of food in a specific time interval. Additionally, the existing pet feeders do not provide any solution to pre-define a time interval and quantity of food to be supplied by the pet owners when the pet owners are not supposed to be at home. Although some other proposed solutions entirely reduce the manual effort and pre-defining food supply time interval and quantity of food, but such solutions are not cost-effective and user-friendly.
The present disclosure is directed to overcome one or more limitations stated above, and any other limitation associated with the prior arts.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure provides a smart pet feeder for automatically supplying a specific quantity of food in a regular time interval. The smart pet feeder comprises, a conical reservoir for storing food grain, a user interface for receiving input from an operator, a servomotor, a load cell, a microcontroller, and a power source. The conical reservoir is secured with a support structure upside down, wherein the conical reservoir can be refilled with food grains for pets based on the requirement. The user interface comprises a keypad and a display unit, wherein the operator sets a time interval and a quantity of food to be supplied by using the keypad and views the set time interval and the set quantity in the display unit. The servomotor holds a circular disc that moves along an open end of a tubular member as the servomotor rotates. The movement of the circular disc along the open end of the tubular member periodically opens and closes the open end of the tubular member to control the dispensing of food grain from the conical reservoir to a food container. The load cell is configured to determine the weight of the food container at the time of dispensing food grain from the conical reservoir and transmits the determined weight to the microcontroller. The microcontroller is configured to trigger the operation of the servomotor based on the time interval set by the operator. The microcontroller is further configured to halt the operation of the servomotor when the weight of the food container containing food grain exceeds the set quantity of dispensable food grain.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

The novel features and characteristics of the disclosure are set forth in the appended claims. The disclosure itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying figures. One or more embodiments are now described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying figures wherein like reference numerals represent like elements and in which:

Figure 1A illustrates a side elevational view of a smart pet feeder for supplying required quantity of food in a defined interval, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;
Figure 1B illustrates a structural view of a conical reservoir of the smart pet feeder for supplying required quantity of food in a defined interval, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;
Figure 1C illustrates a structural view of a circular disc of the smart pet feeder for supplying required quantity of food in the defined interval, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure;
Figure 2 illustrates a circuitry arrangement of components of the smart pet feeder for supplying required quantity of food in the defined interval, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure; and
Figure 3 illustrates an operational flow of the smart pet feeder for supplying required quantity of food in the defined interval, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the present document, the word "exemplary" is used herein to mean "serving as an example, instance, or illustration." Any embodiment or implementation of the present subject matter described herein as "exemplary" is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments.
While the disclosure is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiment thereof has been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail below. It should be understood, however that it is not intended to limit the disclosure to the forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the disclosure is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternative falling within the spirit and the scope of the disclosure.
The terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or any other variations thereof, are intended to cover a non- exclusive inclusion, such that a setup, device or process that comprises a list of components or steps does not include only those components or steps but may include other components or steps not expressly listed or inherent to such setup or device or process. In other words, one or more elements in a system or apparatus proceeded by “comprises… a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of other elements or additional elements in the system or apparatus.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a smart pet feeder for automatically supplying a specific quantity of food in a regular interval. The smart pet feeder comprises, a conical reservoir for storing food grain, a user interface for receiving input from a pet owner, a servomotor, a load cell, a microcontroller, and a power source. The conical reservoir is secured with a support structure upside down, wherein the conical reservoir can be refilled with food grains for pets based on the requirement. The user interface comprises a keypad and a display unit, wherein the pet owner sets a time interval and a quantity of food to be supplied by using the keypad and views the set time interval and the set quantity in the display unit. A tubular member is secured with the conical reservoir to provide a supply duct of the food grain from the conical reservoir. The servomotor holds a circular disc that moves along an open end of the tubular member as the servomotor rotates. The movement of the circular disc along the open end of the tubular member periodically opens and closes the open end of the tubular member to control the dispensing of food grain from the conical reservoir to a food container. The load cell is configured to determine the weight of the food container at the time of dispensing food grain from the conical reservoir and transmits the determined weight to the microcontroller. The microcontroller is configured to trigger the operation of the servomotor based on the time interval set by the pet owner. The microcontroller is further configured to halt the operation of the servomotor when the weight of the food container containing food grain exceeds the set quantity of dispensable food grain.
The following paragraphs describe the present disclosure with reference to Figures 1A to 3. In the figures, Figure 1A is an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure and illustrates a smart pet feeder (100) for automatically supplying a specific quantity of food in a regular time interval. The smart pet feeder (100) according to present disclosure is configured to supply a specific quantity of food grain to a food container for a pet in a regular interval, wherein the quantity of food grain and interval is preset by an operator of the smart pet feeder (100). However, it is understood by a person skilled in the art that the size and configuration of the smart pet feeder (100) may be variable in accordance with the requirement of a pet owner. Any such variation/modification shall be construed to be within the scope of the present disclosure. The smart pet feeder (100) comprises a conical reservoir (102), a user interface comprising a keypad (104) and a display unit (106), a servomotor (108), a load cell (110), a microcontroller (112), and a power source (not displayed in Figure 1A). The smart pet feeder (100) further comprises a tubular member (114) secured with the conical reservoir (102), a circular disc (116) attached to the servomotor (108), a food container (120). In one embodiment, the conical reservoir (102), the keypad (104), the display unit (106), the servomotor (108), and the microcontroller (112) are secured with a support structure. In one embodiment, the microcontroller is connected to the keypad, the display unit, the servomotor, and the load cell via a plurality of control wires.
The conical reservoir (102) is a cone-shaped vessel used for storage of food grain. The conical reservoir has a wide variety of application and is installed upside down to facilitate easy flow of liquid, food grain etc. and prevent accumulation of contaminant. The conical reservoir further facilitates complete drainage of the stored content of the conical reservoir. As illustrated in Figure 1B, the conical reservoir (102) comprises a wide opening (130) at bottom end and a narrow opening (132) at top end, wherein the wide opening (130) is used to refill food grain in the conical reservoir (102) and the narrow opening (132) is used to dispense food grain from the conical reservoir (102). The conical reservoir (102) can be one of the variety of choices of cone angles such as 5-degree, 15-degree, 30-degree, 45-degree, 60-degree cone etc., wherein the cone angle ensures maximum performance in dispensing of food grains. A stepper cone angle has been tested and proved as most effective for settling and separation of food grains. The conical reservoir (102) is further selected based on the volume of food grains requirement of the operator. In one embodiment, the wide opening (130) of the bottom end comes with a lid which can be vented or non – vented. The conical reservoir (102) can be manufactured from one of plurality of materials such as high-density food grade polyethylene, fibre, stainless steel, ply board, aluminum alloys etc. The conical reservoir (102) used in the present invention has been manufactured by using ply board collected from waste material to incur low manufacturing cost and make the conical reservoir (102) light weight for ease of handling. In an alternate embodiment, the conical reservoir (102) can be configured with a level sensor so that the conical reservoir (102) is automatically filled with food grain when the food grain level in the conical reservoir (102) declines below the level sensor, wherein the conical reservoir is directly connected to a mass storage of food grain via one or more supply duct. In one embodiment, one end of the tubular member (114) is secured with the narrow opening (132) of the conical reservoir keeping the other end of the tubular member (114) open, wherein the tubular member (114) provides a supply duct of the food grain from the conical reservoir (102).
The user interface is configured to enable the pet owner to provide a time interval for supplying food and a quantity of food to be supplied by using the keypad (104). The keypad (104) is a set of buttons arranged in a block or pad which bear digits, symbols or alphabetical letters. The keypad (104) can be a matrix keypad that is the most commonly used input device in many of the application areas like digital circuits, telephone communications, calculators, ATMs etc. The matrix keypad consists of a set of push button or switches which are arranged in a matrix format of rows and columns. In one embodiment, the keypad (104) is interfaced with the microcontroller (112) via one or more connecting pins of the microcontroller (112). The microcontroller (112) scans the keypad matrix incessantly to determine if any of the keys are pressed, wherein the microcontroller (112) detects the column and the row of the column in a sequential manner to detect the key pressed by the pet owner. The pet owner provides the time interval as input by pressing one or more keys of the keypad (104), wherein the input is interpreted in terms of minutes. As an example, the pet owner provides input as 130 i.e. the time interval is interpreted as 130 minutes i.e. 2 hours and 10 minutes. The pet owner can further provide the quantity of food by pressing one or more keys of the keypad (104), wherein the input is interpreted in terms of pounds. As an example, the pet owner provides input as 1 i.e. the quantity of food is interpreted as 1 pound. The pet owner can further uses an up key and a down key to switch the context between the time interval and the quantity. As an example, the pet owner presses the down key to provide input for the quantity after pressing one or more keys for entering the time interval.
The display unit (106) can be one of variety of available LCD (Liquid-Crystal Display) display units. The LCD display unit is a small flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly, instead using a backlight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome. Small LCD display units are common in portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, calculators, smart phones etc. In one embodiment, a 16x2 LCD display unit is selected for the present invention for the sake of simplicity, wherein the 16x2 LCD display unit can display 16 characters per line and there are 2 such lines. The 16x2 LCD display unit is very basic module and very commonly used in various devices and circuits.
The servomotor (108) is a linear actuator or rotary actuator that allows for precise control of linear or angular position, acceleration, and velocity. The servomotor (108) is a simple electric motor operated by using DC (Direct Current) or AC (Alternating Current) power supply. The applications of servomotor are also commonly seen in devices where direction of motion is required to be controlled properly. The primary feature of the servomotor is the provision of angular precision. The servomotor (108) is unlike a standard electric motor which starts turning as when the power is applied to the servomotor, and the rotation continues until the power is switched off. In one embodiment, the servomotor is connected to the microcontroller (112) via the control wire, wherein the microcontroller (112) transmits an electrical pulse of variable width, or pulse width modulation (PWM), through the control wire to control the servomotor (108). In one embodiment, the circular disc (116) is attached with the servomotor (108), wherein the circular disc (116) moves along the open end of the tubular member (114). The circular disc (116) further comprises a through hole (134) in one side of the circular disc (116) as illustrated in Figure 1C. The though hole (134) of the circular disc is arranged to be aligned with the open end of the tubular member (114) when the servomotor rotates based on transmitted pulse width modulation from the microcontroller. Therefore, the movement of the circular disc (116) along the open end of the tubular member (114) periodically opens and closes the open end of the tubular member (114) to control the dispensing of food grain from the conical reservoir (102) to the food container (120). In one embodiment, a supply pipe (118) is secured at the bottom of the through hole (134) of the circular disc (116), so that the dispensed food grain can seamlessly flow to the food container. The supply pipe (118) can be an extendable pipe so as to dispense the food grain to a food container placed in a distant location.
The microcontroller (112) is a compact integrated circuit designed to govern a specific operation in an embedded system. In modern terminology, the microcontroller (112) is similar to, but less sophisticated than, a system on a chip (SoC), wherein a SoC may include a microcontroller as one of its components. The microcontroller (112) contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. The memory can be in the form of ferroelectric RAM (Random Access Memory), NOR flash or OTP ROM (Read Only Memory), RAM with small capacity etc. There is plurality of microcontrollers that are designed for plurality of embedded applications. The microcontroller is widely used in vehicles, robots, office machines, medical devices, mobile radio transceivers, vending machines and home appliances, among other devices. The microcontroller (112) is essentially simple miniature personal computers (PCs) designed to control small features of a larger component, without a complex front-end operating system (OS). The microcontroller (112) is communicably connected to the power source (204) (as illustrated in Figure 2) to transmit power to each of the keypad (104), the display unit (106), the servomotor (108), and the load cell (110) and control such transmission. Each of the aforementioned components is separately connected to one of the plurality of pins of the microcontroller (112) so that the microcontroller (112) can control each of the components separately without hampering the operations of other components.
The microcontroller (112) enables a communicable interface between the pet owner and the smart pet feeder via the user interface, wherein microcontroller receives the input from the pet owner via the keypad (104) and display the received input in the display unit (106) in a suitable format. In one embodiment, the microcontroller further enables the pet owner to modify the set time interval and quantity via the user interface. In one embodiment, the microcontroller (112) is configured to trigger the operation of the servomotor (108) based on at least one-time interval set by the pet owner. The microcontroller (112) continuously receives a feed from the load cell (110) with respect to the weight of the food container (120) when the food grain is dispensed from the conical reservoir (102) to the food container (120). The microcontroller (112) is further configured to halt the operation of the servomotor (108) when the weight of the food container (120) containing food grain equals the set quantity of dispensable food grain. In an example, the microcontroller (112) can be an Arduino Uno microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P (datasheet). The Arduino Uno microcontroller board comprises 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB (Universal Serial Bus) connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button.
The power source (204) is secured at a suitable position in the support structure, wherein the power source is configured for powering the keypad (104), the display unit (106), the servomotor (108), the load cell (110), and the microcontroller (112) respectively. In one embodiment, a set of rechargeable batteries are used as the power source, wherein the rechargeable batteries are either recharged separately by applying electric current or by using solar energy acquired via one or more solar panels. In one embodiment, the renewable energy source such as solar power can be used as the power source (204). In one embodiment, the power source can be a DC (Direct Current) power supply that supplies a constant voltage to a load. The power source (204) can further be an AC (Alternating Current) power supply that is capable of supplying variable power and frequency to the load.
In one embodiment, the smart pet feeder (100) can be configured to supply different types of liquids such as water, milk etc. and also different type of food grains.
The following paragraph(s) describe the operation of the smart pet feeder (100) according to an embodiment of the present disclosure as illustrated in Figure 3.
As illustrated in Figure 3, the operating method (300) comprises one or more blocks to be performed to enable a smart pet feeder. The order in which the operating method (300) is described is not intended to be construed as a limitation, and any number of the described method blocks can be combined in any order to implement the method. Additionally, individual blocks may be deleted from the methods without departing from the spirit and scope of the subject matter described herein.
The smart pet feeder (100) can be used for the purpose of automatically supplying a specific quantity of food in a regular interval so that the pets can access the food when required. Initially, the smart pet feeder (100) is in an idle state connected with a power source (204). At block (302), the power source (204) is turned on to operate on the plurality of components of the smart per feeder (100). Each of the keypad, the display unit, the servomotor, the load cell, and the microcontroller persist in an operable condition once the power source (204) is turned on. At block (304), a pet owner provides a time interval as input by using the keypad (104) and views the input time interval in the display unit (106). The pet owner further provides a quantity as input by using the keypad (104) and views the input quantity in the display unit (106). Upon viewing the input time interval and the quantity, the pet owner confirms the input by pressing a suitable key in the keypad (104). The microcontroller (112) receives the input provided by the pet owner and stores the input in an internal memory. At block (306), the microcontroller (112) determines whether a time, passed from the time of receiving input from the pet owner, is equal to the set time interval by the pet owner. At block (310), the servomotor remains at idle state if the passed time is not equal to the set time interval. If the passed time is equal to the set time interval, the microcontroller (112) triggers the servomotor (108) to rotate for dispensing food to the food container (120). At block (308), the servomotor starts rotating, thereby enabling the circular disc to move along the open end of the tubular member. The food grain is dispensed from the conical reservoir (102) to the food container (120) when the through hole (134) of the circular disc (116) is placed below the open end of the tubular member (114) due to the movement of the circular disc (114). At block (312), the microcontroller continuously receives the weight of the food container (120) from the load cell (110) during dispensing of food grain from the conical reservoir (102). The microcontroller (102) further determines equality of the weight of the food container and the quantity set by the pet owner. If the weight of the food container is equal to the set quantity, the microcontroller (102) halts the operation of servomotor (108) at block (314) so that dispensing of food grain to the food container (120) is stopped. The through hole (134) of the circular disc (116) moves to close the open end of the tubular member (114) for discontinuing the dispensing of food grain as the servomotor (108) rotates to halt the operation. If the weight of the food container is not equal to the set quantity, the servomotor (108) remains at same condition to continue dispensing of food grain to the food container (120).
Advantages of the present disclosure:
The present disclosure provides a smart pet feeder (100) which can establish a sequence of activities automatically such as presetting a time interval and quantity to supply food grain to the pets, automatically start dispensing food grain in the preset intervals, automatically halts the dispensing of food grains upon fulfilling the preset quantity without any manual/human intervention, thereby improving the operating experience of the smart pet feeder.
The present disclosure provides a smart pet feeder (100) which improves efficiency of operations with respect to pet feeder devices, and is easy to manufacture as it has minimum number of parts and components that incurs very low cost.
The present disclosure provides a smart pet feeder (100) with the provision of operating in solar power therefore improves the efficiency of the smart pet feeder (100) in terms of power consumption.
In the detailed description of the embodiments of the disclosure, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the disclosure may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the disclosure, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. The description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense.
Equivalents:
With respect to the use of substantially any plural and/or singular terms herein, those having skill in the art can translate from the plural to the singular and/or from the singular to the plural as is appropriate to the context and/or application. The various singular/plural permutations may be expressly set forth herein for sake of clarity.
It will be understood by those within the art that, in general, terms used herein, and especially in the appended claims (e.g., bodies of the appended claims) are generally intended as “open” terms (e.g., the term “including” should be interpreted as “including but not limited to,” the term “having” should be interpreted as “having at least,” the term “includes” should be interpreted as “includes but is not limited to,” etc.). It will be further understood by those within the art that if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is intended, such an intent will be explicitly recited in the claim, and in the absence of such recitation no such intent is present. For example, as an aid to understanding, the following appended claims may contain usage of the introductory phrases “at least one” and “one or more” to introduce claim recitations. However, the use of such phrases should not be construed to imply that the introduction of a claim recitation by the indefinite articles “a” or “an” limits any particular claim containing such introduced claim recitation to inventions containing only one such recitation, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases “one or more” or “at least one” and indefinite articles such as “a” or “an” (e.g., “a” and/or “an” should typically be interpreted to mean “at least one” or “one or more”); the same holds true for the use of definite articles used to introduce claim recitations.
In addition, even if a specific number of an introduced claim recitation is explicitly recited, those skilled in the art will recognize that such recitation should typically be interpreted to mean at least the recited number (e.g., the bare recitation of “two recitations,” without other modifiers, typically means at least two recitations, or two or more recitations). Furthermore, in those instances where a convention analogous to “at least one of A, B, and C, etc.” is used, in general such a construction is intended in the sense one having skill in the art would understand the convention (e.g., “a system having at least one of A, B, and C” would include but not be limited to systems that have A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, and/or A, B, and C together, etc.). In those instances where a convention analogous to “at least one of A, B, or C, etc.” is used, in general such a construction is intended in the sense one having skill in the art would understand the convention (e.g., “a system having at least one of A, B, or C” would include but not be limited to systems that have A alone, B alone, C alone, A and B together, A and C together, B and C together, and/or A, B, and C together, etc.). It will be further understood by those within the art that virtually any disjunctive word and/or phrase presenting two or more alternative terms, whether in the description, claims, or drawings, should be understood to contemplate the possibilities of including one of the terms, either of the terms, or both terms. For example, the phrase “A or B” will be understood to include the possibilities of “A” or “B” or “A and B.”
While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.
Referral Numerals:

Reference Number Description
100 Smart pet feeder
102 Conical reservoir
104 Keypad
106 Display unit
108 Servomotor
110 Load cell
112 Microcontroller
114 Tubular member
116 Circular disc
118 Supply Pipe
120 Food container
130 Wide Opening
132 Narrow Opening
134 Through hole
204 Power source

We claim:

1. A smart pet feeder (100) comprising:
a conical reservoir (102) for storing food grain;
a user interface comprising a keypad (104) and a display unit (106) for receiving input from an operator;
a servomotor (108)to control the dispense of the food grain from the conical reservoir based on the operator’s input;
a load cell (110) for measuring weight of a food container (120);
a microcontroller (112) interfaced with the servomotor (108), the user interface, and the load cell (110); and
a power source (204) for supplying power to the servomotor (108), the user interface, the load cell (110), and the microcontroller (112).
2. The smart pet feeder (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the conical reservoir (102), comprising a wide opening (130) at bottom end and a narrow opening (132) at top end, is secured with a support structure upside down, wherein the wide opening (130) is used to refill the food grain in the conical reservoir.
3. The smart pet feeder(100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein one end of a tubular member (114) is secured with the narrow opening (132) of the conical reservoir (102) to provide a supply duct of the food grain from the conical reservoir (102) and other end of the tubular member (114) is retained as an open end.
4. The smart pet feeder(100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the user interface is configured to receive at least one time interval and a quantity for dispensing food grains as set by the operator via the keypad (104), and display the at least one preset time interval and the quantity in the display unit (106).
5. The smart pet feeder (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the circular disc (116) is attached with the servomotor (108), wherein the circular disc (116) moves along an open end of the tubular member (114) as the servomotor (108) rotates.
6. The smart pet feeder(100) as claimed in claim 5, wherein the movement of the circular disc (116) along the open end of the tubular member (114) periodically opens and closes the open end of the tubular member (114) to control dispensing of food grain from the conical reservoir (102)to the food container (120).
7. The smart pet feeder (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the load cell (110) is configured to determine the weight of the food container (120) at the time of dispensing food grain from the conical reservoir (102)and transmits a measurable electrical signal with respect to the determined weight to the microcontroller (112).
8. The smart pet feeder (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the microcontroller (112) is configured to trigger the operation of the servomotor (108) based on at least one time interval set by the operator.
9. The smart pet feeder (100) as claimed in claim 1, wherein the microcontroller (112) is further configured to halt the operation of the servomotor (108) when the weight of the food container (120) containing food grain exceeds the set quantity of dispensable food grain.