US Patent Issued to InvenSense on April 1 for "Ultrasonic cliff detection and depth estimation using tilted sensors" (French, American Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,265,186, issued on April 1, was assigned to InvenSense Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).

"Ultrasonic cliff detection and depth estimation using tilted sensors" was invented by Daniela Hall (Eybens, France), Tony Lei (San Francisco), Zhongyang Li (Noyarey, France) and Joe Youssef (Noyarey, France).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A robotic cleaning appliance includes a housing to which is coupled a surface treatment item and a sensor assembly with first and second transducers and an acoustic interface. The first sonic transducer transmits sonic signals through an acoustic interface and out of a first acoustic opening toward a surface beneath the robo...