SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING A DISTANCE TO AN OBJECT
FIG1 represents a flow chart of an embodiment of the method according to the present invention
FIG1 represents a flow chart of an embodiment of the method according to the present invention. Without loss of generality, the ranging method is described with reference to a range gating algorithm. In a first time window 10, the method comprises projecting 110 a pattern of spots of laser light (e.g. a regular or an irregular spatial pattern of spots) from a light source comprising a solid-state light source 210 onto any objects in the targeted area of the scenery. The spatial pattern is repeatedly projected in a sequence of pulses.
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['1. A system (200) for determining a distance to an object comprising: - a solid-state light source (210) arranged for projecting a pattern of discrete spots of laser light towards said object in a sequence of pulses; - a detector (220) comprising a plurality of picture elements, said detector (220) being configured for detecting light representing said pattern of discrete spots as reflected by said object in synchronization with said sequence of pulses; and - processing means (240) configured to calculate said distance to said object as a function of exposure values generated by said picture elements in response to said detected light based on the amount of temporal overlap between the pulse emission window and the arrival of the reflected pulse by applying range gating to said sequence of pulses; wherein said picture elements (220) are configured to generate said exposure values by accumulating, for all of the pulses of said sequence, a first amount of electrical charge representative of a first amount of light reflected by said object during a first predetermined time window (10) overlapping with the pulse emission time window and a second electrical charge representative of a second amount of light reflected by said object during a second predetermined time window (20), said second predetermined time window (20) occurring after said first predetermined time window (10) ; wherein each of said plurality of picture elements comprises at least two charge storage wells; wherein said detecting of said first amount of light and said detecting of said second amount of light occurs at respective ones of said at least two charge storage wells; and wherein the solid-state radiation source emits substantially monochromatic light having a wavelength spread of less than ±20 nm and the detector is equipped with a corresponding narrow bandpass filter (1060; 1160; 1260; 1360; 1460).']