ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,325,121, issued on June 10, was assigned to GOOGLE LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Robot appendage actuation" was invented by J. Chase Kew (San Francisco), James Lubin (Oakland, Calif.), Ken Caluwaerts (Los Angeles), Stefano Saliceti (London), Brandon Kinman (Santa Cruz, Calif.), Byron David (San Jose, Calif.) and Claudio Fantacci (London).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In various implementations a removable appendage of a robot can allow for stable pitch and yaw, while mitigating interference with other movements of the robot. A neck of the robot can include at least two linear actuators, each coupled to a rod that is driven to move linear...