US Patent Issued to Toyota Motor Enginerring & Manufacturing North America, Toyota Jidosha, Board of Regents, The University of Texas System on Aug. 25 for "Elastomer skins with embedded and unequally pre-loaded coated actuators" (Michigan, Virginia, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,716,401, issued on Aug. 25, was assigned to Toyota Motor Enginerring & Manufacturing North America Inc. (Plano, Texas), Toyota Jidosha K.K. (Toyota, Japan) and Board of Regents, The University of Texas System (Austin, Texas).

"Elastomer skins with embedded and unequally pre-loaded coated actuators" was invented by Umesh N. Gandhi (Farmington Hills, Mich.), Yuyang Song (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Pawandeep Singh Matharu (Charlottesville, Va.) and Yonas Tadesse (Garland, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An actuator described herein triggers twisting actuation of an elastomer skin. In one embodiment, an elastomer skin includes an elastomer subs...