SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING A DISTANCE TO AN OBJECT
FIG2 schematically represents an embodiment of the system according to the present invention
FIG2 schematically represents an embodiment of the system according to the present invention, in relation to an object 99 in the scenery of interest. The system 200 comprises a solid-state light source 210 for projecting a pattern of a sequence of spots, which may be repeated periodically, onto the object 99. A detector 220 is arranged near the light source and configured to detect light reflected by the object.
embodiment
210
light source
230
synchronization means
220
detector
240
Appropriate processing means
99
object
200
system
['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).']