ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,445,594, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Waymo LLC (Mountain View, Calif.).
"Localized window contaminant detection" was invented by Benjamin Frevert (Mountain View, Calif.) and Shashank Sharma (Mountain View, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present disclosure relates to contaminant detection systems and related optical systems and methods. An example contaminant detection system includes an optical coupler configured to couple light into and/or out of an optical element. The contaminant detection system also includes a plurality of light-emitter devices configured to emit emission light toward the optical coupler. The conta...