ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,344,166, issued on July 1, was assigned to Continental Autonomous Mobility US LLC (Auburn Hills, Mich.).
"Tow ball position detection system" was invented by Horst Daniel Diessner (Rochester Hills, Mich.), Nizar Ahamed (Farmington Hills, Mich.) and Akash Maheshwari (Ferndale, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method and system are disclosed for performing a trailer operation for a vehicle having a tow ball. The method includes receiving a first image from a rear camera disposed along a rear portion of the vehicle in a first position; and detecting a pixel position of a representation of the tow ball in the first image. Following the ...