ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,303,091, issued on May 20, was assigned to iRobot Corp. (Bedford, Mass.).
"Pad changing system for robotic vacuum cleaners" was invented by Brian W. Doughty (Framingham, Mass.), Isaac Fowler (Boston), Leo Torrente (Somerville, Mass.) and Vincent Andrew Wolff (Norfolk, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A docking station for a mobile cleaning robot can include a housing. The housing can define or comprise a pad receptacle and a pad dispenser. The pad receptacle can be configured to receive a soiled pad from a pad tray of the mobile cleaning robot. The pad dispenser can be configured to provide a fresh pad to the pad tray of the mobile c...