ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,792, issued on May 13, was assigned to Ford Global Technologies LLC (Dearborn, Mich.).
"Electrostatic sensor cleaning" was invented by Lorne Forsythe (Novi, Mich.), Lars Niklas Pettersson (Novi, Mich.), Venkatesh Krishnan (Canton, Mich.) and Michael Robertson Jr. (Garden City, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sensor-cleaning system includes a sensor of a vehicle, an electrode, and a computer communicatively coupled to the electrode. The sensor includes a lens. The electrode is positioned to draw dust from the lens when the electrode is energized. The computer is programmed to energize the electrode in response to the vehicle mo...