US Patent Issued to TOYOTA JIDOSHA on June 3 for "Vehicle, automated valet parking system, and automated valet parking method" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,319,304, issued on June 3, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Vehicle, automated valet parking system, and automated valet parking method" was invented by Nobutsugu Maruiwa (Mishima, Japan) and Tatsuya Sugano (Susono, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle includes: an in-vehicle sensor that detects an environment around the vehicle; an autonomous driving unit that executes automated valet parking based on the detection result from the in-vehicle sensor; a detection unit that detects dirt or a raindrop attached to the in-vehicle sensor before the automated valet parking is started by the autonomous driving unit;...