ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,491,903, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to THE TORO COMPANY (Bloomington, Minn.).
"Autonomous machine navigation and charging" was invented by Jason Thomas Kraft (Stillwater, Minn.) and Adam Burghardt Stroud (St. Paul, Minn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An autonomous machine may be returned to a base station for charging based on remaining battery energy and an estimated travel energy threshold. The estimated travel energy threshold may be determined based on a direct and obstacle-free route from the machine's current position to the base station and an estimated energy consumed per unit distance, which may be updated. The remaining bat...