ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,523,455, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Raytheon Co. (Arlington, Va.).
"Submunition deployment system" was invented by Paul S. MacDonald (Tiverton, R.I.), Jaylan S. Jones (Tucson, Ariz.), Jessie A. Polanco (Tucson, Ariz.) and Shawn P. Burke (Omaha, Neb.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A payload module for an aerial vehicle stores and deploys one or more submunition assemblies, which provide a portion of the vehicle's OML when stored, in a manner that preserves the aerodynamics of the aerial vehicle post-deployment. Pre-deployment a skin is aligned to a strongback such that the submunition assemblies are exposed through openings in the...