US Patent Issued to TOYOTA RESEARCH INSTITUTE, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on Sept. 8 for "Dynamically inflatable deformable membranes" (Massachusetts Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,728,545, issued on Sept. 8, was assigned to TOYOTA RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC. (Los Altos, Calif.) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Dynamically inflatable deformable membranes" was invented by Alexander Alspach (Woburn, Mass.) and Andrew M. Beaulieu (Somerville, Mass.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Embodiments of a deformable gripper are described. The deformable gripper comprises a base, a first inner membrane and a second inner membrane coupled to the base, an outer membrane attached to the base such that the outer membrane is positioned to enclose the first inner membrane and the second inner membrane, and an actuator operable to...