ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,418, issued on July 21, was assigned to MATIC ROBOTS INC. (Mountain View, Calif.).

"Self-actuated cleaning head for an autonomous vacuum" was invented by Anshuman Kumar (San Francisco), Vishal Jain (San Francisco), Seungho Yang (Mountain View, Calif.), Gavin Li (Menlo Park, Calif.), Mehul Nariyawala (Los Altos, Calif.) and Navneet Dalal (Atherton, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An autonomous cleaning robot (e.g., an autonomous vacuum) may clean an environment using a cleaning head that is self-actuated. The cleaning head includes an actuator assembly comprising an actuator configured to control rotation and vertical movement o...