ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,365,345, issued on July 22, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Using audio to detect road conditions" was invented by Xin Zhou (Mountain View, Calif.), Xuan Zhong (Mountain View, Calif.) and Courtney McCool (Mountain View, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "It is advantageous for a vehicle to detect road wetness or related environmental conditions. This is particularly true for self-driving vehicles, which can then adjust the manner of automated operation of the vehicle to increase safety by reducing speed, braking earlier, adjusting internal estimates of road traction parameters, or adjusting autonomous operation in ...