ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,318,930, issued on June 3, was assigned to KYB Corp. (Tokyo).

"Modular robot" was invented by Shunichi Sugimoto (Kakogawa, Japan), Sang-Ho Hyon (Kyoto, Japan), Yasushi Saitou (Nagano, Japan), Sadayuki Kamikura (Nagano, Japan) and Yuji Fukuzawa (Nagano, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A module robot includes a first link, a second link movably linked to the first link, and a fluid pressure cylinder configured to move the first link and the second link relative to each other, wherein the first link has a cylinder block in which a cylinder chamber of the fluid pressure cylinder is formed."

The patent was filed on Oct. 1, 2021, under Ap...