ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,409,833, issued on Sept. 9.
"Clutch device and collision mitigation mechanism" was invented by Fukuei Sawada (Tokorozawa, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "When a collision occurs, a driving force of a drive shaft is transmitted to a reversing high-load multiple disk clutch via an inertia absorbing gear mechanism. Then, the driving force is transmitted to a gear via a gear, and inertia is absorbed and the driving force acts to rotate an output shaft at a low speed. On the other hand, when the gear rotates, a regenerative/backing up motor also rotates, and so-called regenerative driving is also performed. Due to these operations, the ...