US Patent Issued to TOYOTA JIDOSHA on Sept. 1 for "Bump detector" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 1 -- United States Patent no. 12,722,642, issued on Sept. 1, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Bump detector" was invented by Hideto Wakabayashi (Numazu, Japan) and Motoki Tachiiri (Nagoya, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A bump detector for detecting a bump on a road surface where a vehicle travels, includes a processor, which acquires a motor torque of a motor connected to a tire, a tire angular acceleration, a motor angular acceleration, and speed information of the vehicle, calculates a force in a horizontal direction acting on the tire when the tire rides on the bump, and estimates a bump height in accordance with the force in the horizonta...