Homogeneous dielectric heating in large microwave ovens by excitation of multiple eigenmodes at their resonance frequencies

Microwave heating faces growing interest in many industries because of its large potential
in increasing productivity and energy efficiency. Nevertheless, the main challenge of this
heating method is to provide sufficient uniformity of the temperature distribution, in
particular in industrial scale production. Several temperature maxima and minima typically
occur in a sample because of the standing waves inside a cavity. An optimization-based
approach is presented to increase the temperature homogeneity by exiting selected
eigenmodes of the cavity. Results of a related experiment show the performance of the
developed algorithm.