US Patent Issued to Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment on March 25 for "Automated changing of drill bits via mast angle" (American, Indian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,258,819, issued on March 25, was assigned to Caterpillar Global Mining Equipment LLC (Denison, Texas).

"Automated changing of drill bits via mast angle" was invented by John Francis Halterman (Sherman, Texas) and Yagneshwar Natarajan (Chennai, India).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "During drilling operations by a drilling rig, drill bits may need to be changed, which can lead to inefficiency. Thus, a process is disclosed for automatically changing drill bits. The process utilizes the existing ability of the drill to tilt. In particular, a magazine may be provided that comprise a plurality of drill-bit pockets arranged in at least one colu...