US Patent Issued to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Toyota Jidosha on Sept. 29 for "Systems and methods for restraining a passenger via a variable-stiffness blanket" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,746,887, issued on Sept. 29, was assigned to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (Plano, Texas) and Toyota Jidosha K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Systems and methods for restraining a passenger via a variable-stiffness blanket" was invented by Yuyang Song (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Shinnosuke Shimokawa (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Phouvadol P. Khouphongsy (Saline, Mich.), Umesh N. Gandhi (Farmington Hills, Mich.) and Koray Benli (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A passenger restraint system includes a sealed blanket. The sealed blanket is draped over a passenger. The passenger restraint system also includes a set of varia...