ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,481,149, issued on Nov. 25, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Tapered mirror shaft" was invented by David Duff (Portola Valley, Calif.), Michael Brickner (Mountain View, Calif.) and Hugh Ross (San Francisco).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure relates to systems and methods that involve a rotatable mirror assembly. An example system includes a shaft configured to rotate about a rotational axis. A portion of the shaft can be tapered, either in a stepped profile or a ramped profile. In the surface of the shaft can be one or more circumferentially-indented grooves. The system also includes a mirror body co...