ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,360,224, issued on July 15, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Laminate structures for maintaining clear apertures" was invented by William Grossman (East Palo Alto, Calif.), Troy Scott Storz (Manteca, Calif.) and Matthew Carroll (Menlo Park, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sensor (e.g., an optical sensor) is disposed in an enclosure that separates it from an external environment. The enclosure includes an aperture comprising a transparent material. A laminate comprising a plurality of transparent films is coupled to the aperture such that the sensor has a field of view of the external environment through the tra...