ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,745,698, issued on Sept. 29, was assigned to Andreas Stihl AG & Co. KG (Waiblingen, Germany).
"Self-driving work apparatus" was invented by Nikolai Gerk (Grafenau, Germany), Martin Ullrich (Fellbach, Germany), Martin Failenschmid (Engstingen, Germany), Christian Schmidt (Schwaikheim, Germany) and Sven Keller (Berglen, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A self-driving work apparatus has a chassis, at least one tool and a hood. The hood is movably mounted on the chassis via at least one bearing. The bearing allows a movement of the hood relative to the chassis in a vertical direction in the park position and in a horizontal direction....