ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,623,487, issued on May 12, was assigned to Sony Group Corp. (Tokyo) and Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. (Tokyo).
"Mobile body" was invented by Ryuichi Suzuki (Tokyo), Fumihiko Iida (Kanagawa, Japan) and Koichi Obana (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mobile body includes a base, three wheels attached to the base, and actuators each of which drives each wheel, and enables omnidirectional movement. Of the three wheels, one or two of the wheels are first configuration wheels, and the remaining wheel or wheels are second configuration wheels. The one wheel is oriented parallel or orthogonal to the orientation of the other two wheels....