ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,427,081, issued on Sept. 30, was assigned to International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).
"Wide sweep cane" was invented by Trudy L. Hewitt (Cary, N.C.), Mauro Marzorati (Lutz, Fla.), Carolina Garcia Delgado (Zapopan, Mexico) and Jeremy R. Fox (Georgetown, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A cane for increased sweep coverage includes a first time-of-flight (TOF) sensor, a haptic feedback generator and a processor. The first TOF sensor is disposed at a first end of the cane and is configured to emit a first TOF beam. The haptic feedback generator is disposed towards a second end of the cane that is distally opposite from the ...