ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,565,411, issued on March 3, was assigned to Rapyuta Robotics Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Forklift" was invented by Kou Kikutake (Tokyo) and Jiro Nitta (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A forklift capable of recognizing a state on a front side even when holding a pallet is provided. A forklift includes: a fork movable in a height direction; a distance sensor held by the fork to be relatively movable with respect to the fork in the height direction, the distance sensor measuring a distance to an object existing in a forward direction; and a restriction mechanism restricting a movement of the distance sensor in a downward direction of the height...