US Patent Issued to Caterpillar on July 15 for "Damage avoidance systems and methods for motor grader scarifiers" (Illinois Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,359,396, issued on July 15, was assigned to Caterpillar Inc. (Peoria, Ill.).

"Damage avoidance systems and methods for motor grader scarifiers" was invented by Michael C. Gentle (Maroa, Ill.), Ethan M. Tevis (Bloomington, Ill.) and David L. Cox (Monticello, Ill.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for operating a grading machine. The method includes (i) receiving information indicating a current position of a moldboard of the grading machine; (ii) determining if the moldboard is moving toward an avoidance zone, and the avoidance zone is defined by a distance from a scarifier of the gra...