ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,435,999, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Steering device" was invented by Kotaro Nakamura (Saitama, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A steering device (1) includes: a steering wheel (2); a plurality of proximity sensors (4, 5, 6, 7) which are arranged on a rim part (20) of the steering wheel (2), and output detection values (Ch_1, Ch_2, Ch_3, Ch_4) that vary according to distance between each arrangement position and the human body; and a grip determination device (8) which determines the presence/absence of gripping of the rim part (20) based on the detection values (Ch_1 to Ch_4) of the proximity sen...