METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DETERMINING DISTANCES TO A SCENE

• Main Authors: PAESEN, Rik, VANDEWIELE, Stijn, VAN DEN BROECK, Nick, VAN DYCK, Dirk
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 13.10.2022
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; PHYSICS; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; TESTING

A method and device for determining distances to a scene determines a laser light pulse width PW that is smaller than a maximum time of flight TOFmax corresponding to a maximum distance Dmax by using a pulse width reduction factor N such that PW=(TOFmax−TDL)/N wherein TDL is a predefined delay window, determines a pulse frequency FP such that FP≤1/((N+1)×PW+TDL), illuminates the scene with an illuminating pattern comprising a plurality of spatially separated pulsed laser beams having the determined pulse width and frequency, performs the detection as function of time during a detection time period TD divided in M=α×(N+1) consecutive detection time windows, with α≥1, such that TD=M×(PW/α), identifies in what detection time windows reflected laser light is detected, and calculates a distance to the scene based on this identification.