ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,256,876, issued on March 25, was assigned to iRobot Corp. (Bedford, Mass.).
"Evacuation station" was invented by Russell Walter Morin (Burlington, Mass.), Harold Boeschenstein (Marblehead, Mass.), David Orrin Swett (Waltham, Mass.) and Jude Royston Jonas (Hudson, N.H.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mobile robot includes a body configured to traverse a surface and to receive debris from the surface, and a debris bin within the body. The debris bin includes a chamber to hold the debris received by the mobile robot, an exhaust port through which the debris exits the debris bin; and a door unit over the exhaust port. The door unit include...