ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,467,531, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Convoy travel control device" was invented by Keisuke Ota (Toyota, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A target gear stage of the automatic transmission of the own vehicle (following vehicle) is determined based on the target acceleration (=required drive torque) and the target vehicle speed of the leading vehicle by the convoy participation time speed change control unit, and when the target gear stage and the actual gear stage of the own vehicle are different, the gear stage of the automatic transmission of the own vehicle is switched to the target gear ...