ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,307,790, issued on May 20, was assigned to Ford Global Technologies LLC (Dearborn, Mich.).
"Steering wheel contact detection" was invented by David Michael Herman (West Bloomfield, Mich.), Yashanshu Jain (Dearborn, Mich.) and Ryan Sorsby (Canton, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An object can be detected in contact with a steering wheel of a vehicle. A first image of the steering wheel at a first angle of rotation and a second image of the steering wheel at a second angle of rotation are then obtained. A type of the object is identified based on at least one of the first image or the second image, as one of a human hand or a foreign ...