ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,241,824, issued on March 4, was assigned to Standard Motor Products (Long Island City, N.Y.).
"Soot sensor system" was invented by Kayvan Hedayat (Weston, Mass.), John Hart (Lexington, Ohio), Eric Matson (Bellville, Ohio), Mark Wilson (Mansfield, Ohio) and Norman Poirier (Raynham, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A soot sensing system includes a soot sensor having a first element, and circuitry to an amount of soot accumulated on the element and to control heating of the element in response to the soot accumulation. An electrostatic repelling voltage (ERV) may be applied to a sensor/heater element(s) during a contamination prevention...