ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,372,493, issued on July 29, was assigned to NGK INSULATORS Ltd. (Nagoya, Japan).
"Gas sensor" was invented by Taku Okamoto (Nagoya, Japan), Soichiro Yoshida (Nagoya, Japan) and Ryo Hashikawa (Nagoya, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A gas sensor includes a sensor element and a pump cell controller. The pump cell controller performs a normal time control process after a heater control process is started, the normal time control process including a main pump control process, an auxiliary pump control process of controlling an auxiliary pump cell so that a voltage for auxiliary pump reaches a target value, and a normal time measurement ...