ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,492, issued on May 13.
"Embedded magnetic sensing for soft actuators" was invented by Mark Rentschler (Boulder, Colo.), Vani Sundaram (Boulder, Colo.), Khoi Ly (Boulder, Colo.), Jatin Mayekar (Boulder, Colo.) and Nikolaus Correll (Boulder, Colo.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A magnetic sensing approach for determining a positioning characteristic of a soft robotic actuator. A magnetic field or a change in magnetic field of a magnetic member may be measured as it undergoes concurrent displacement with a soft actuator. Additionally, an example rolling robotic wheel is illustrated. The robotic wheel may utilize magnetic sensing as desc...