US Patent Issued to Waymo on June 23 for "Detecting general road weather conditions" (California, Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,663,796, issued on June 23, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).

"Detecting general road weather conditions" was invented by David Harrison Silver (San Carlos, Calif.), Jens-Steffen Ralf Gutmann (Cupertino, Calif.) and Michael James (Northville, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The technology relates to determining general weather conditions affecting the roadway around a vehicle, and how such conditions may impact driving and route planning for the vehicle when operating in an autonomous mode. For instance, the on-board sensor system may detect whether the road is generally icy as opposed to a small ice patch on a spec...