ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,313,883, issued on May 27, was assigned to Santec Holdings Corp. (Komaki, Japan).

"Photonic beam steering device with wavelength sweep" was invented by Changho Chong (Los Altos, Calif.) and Masayuki Okano (Santa Clara, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A beam steering system includes a light source configured to generate an optical beam at various wavelengths. An array of emitters receives the beam and selectively emits the beam. An optical device receives the beam and directs the beam into an external environment of the beam steering system. The beam is directed into the external environment at different angles corresponding to a lo...