ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,618,298, issued on May 5, was assigned to NATIONAL OILWELL VARCO LP (Houston).
"End effectors for automated pipe handling" was invented by Graham Alexander Carnegie (Cypress, Texas), John Walker (Tomball, Texas), Christopher J. Saunders (Conroe, Texas) and Dominick Mancuso (Tomball, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A robot configured for pipe handling. The robot may include an articulated arm controllable by a controller and an end effector arranged at an end of the articulated arm. The articulated arm may include two pipe engaging jaws, each jaw having an inner contour configured for engaging a pipe section. At least one of the jaws m...