ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,704,388, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to Torc Robotics Inc. (Blacksburg, Va.).
"Capacitive smart road for vehicle localization" was invented by William Davis (Blacksburg, Va.), Hamzah Khan (Blacksburg, Va.), Christopher Harrison (Blacksburg, Va.) and Joseph R. Fox-Rabinovitz (Blacksburg, Va.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system including a plurality of first wires and a plurality of second wires is disclosed. Each second wire overlaps over one or more first wires at a respective overlapping area of one or more first wires. A dielectric material is disposed in a vertical gap at each respective overlapping area forming a capacitance ...