US Patent Issued to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on Aug. 26 for "Active tethers for programmable shape deployment of airbags" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,397,737, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA INC. (Plano, Texas) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Aichi Ken, Japan).

"Active tethers for programmable shape deployment of airbags" was invented by Paul Gilmore (Howell, Mich.), Yuyang Song (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Phouvadol Khouphongsy (Saline, Mich.) and Umesh Gandhi (Farmington Hills, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system includes a vehicle, an airbag located within the vehicle, an elongatable tether anchored to the airbag at both ends, and an actuator configured to control the elongatable tether. In a first state of the actuator, the tethe...