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The Economic Times
The Economic Times
Trending Desk

This 84-year-old Honda engineer looks like Einstein and has 50+ patents: Meet Shotaro Odate behind smart steering-wheel tech

Albert Einstein Honda

At 84, Shotaro Odate may not be the typical face people expect when they think about cutting-edge automotive technology. With his distinctive Einstein-like appearance and a career linked to dozens of Honda patents, Odate has quietly worked on technologies that are increasingly relevant to modern cars, including automated driving, driver monitoring and steering-wheel sensing.

Patent records attribute more than 50 US patents to Odate, covering a wide range of automotive technologies. Some of his work focuses on a deceptively simple question: Is the driver actually holding the steering wheel?

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