ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,304,082, issued on May 20, was assigned to Boston Dynamics Inc. (Waltham, Mass.).
"Alternate route finding for waypoint-based navigation maps" was invented by Gene Brown Merewether (Chestnut Hill, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A computer-implemented method executed by data processing hardware of a robot causes the data processing hardware to perform operations including obtaining a topological map including waypoints and edges. Each edge connects adjacent waypoints. The waypoints and edges represent a navigation route for the robot to follow. Operations include determining, that an edge that connects first and second waypoints is ...