US Patent Issued to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on April 22 for "Shape-memory material actuators" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,281,644, issued on April 22, was assigned to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA INC. (Plano, Texas) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Shape-memory material actuators" was invented by Shardul S. Panwar (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Michael P. Rowe (Pinckney, Mich.), Maduran Palaniswamy (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Ryohei Tsuruta (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An actuator that includes a shell, a ring structure within the shell, a shape-memory material wire fixed at opposite points of the ring structure to extend in a first direction across a width of the ring structure, and a cooling fluid provided within the ...