ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,468,300, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to BOSTON DYNAMICS INC. (Waltham, Mass.).
"Detecting negative obstacles" was invented by Jeffrey Yu (Cambridge, Mass.), Benjamin John Swilling (Winchester, Mass.) and Eric Cary Whitman (Arlington, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A computer-implemented method when executed by data processing hardware causes the data processing hardware to perform operations. The operations include detecting a candidate support surface at an elevation less than a current surface supporting a legged robot. A determination is made on whether the candidate support surface includes an area of missing terrain data w...