The present disclosure generally pertains to time-of-flight circuitry configured to: apply a set of detection time intervals to at least one light detection event for determining a point of time of the at least one light detection event, wherein the set of detection time intervals has a predetermined detection pattern encoding predetermined points of time.

A LIDAR system that scans a beam in a full 360° FOV without any moving parts. The system includes a transmitter sub-system having a tunable laser beam source, an SPPR responsive to the laser beam, and a conical mirror receiving the output beam and directing the output beam into a desired FOV. The system also includes a receiver sub-system responsive to a reflected beam that is reflected off of an object that receives the output beam from the mirror, where the receiver sub-system includes a plurality of detector modules each including a receiver detector and arranged so that at least one detector module receives the reflected beam from any direction. The system further includes a signal processor sub-system that tunes the frequency of the laser beam generated by the laser source to change the angle orientation of the output beam and scan the output beam in the 360° FOV.

A pulsed-light detection and ranging apparatus comprises an optical detector arranged to generate, when in use, time-series data in response to an optical pulse incident thereupon. A processing resource is also provided and arranged to support a pulse analyser (132). The pulse analyser (132) is arranged to identify (134) an inflection point of a pulse described by the time-series data. The pulse analyser (132) is further arranged to calculate (138) a distance based upon determined inflection point relative to a time axis associated with the time-series data.

A pulsed-light detection and ranging apparatus comprises an optical detector arranged to generate, when in use, time-series data in response to an optical pulse incident thereupon. A processing resource is also provided and arranged to support a pulse analyser (132). The pulse analyser (132) is arranged to identify (134) an inflection point of a pulse described by the time-series data. The pulse analyser (132) is further arranged to calculate (138) a distance based upon determined inflection point relative to a time axis associated with the time-series data.

Examples are disclosed herein relating to signal processing in a time-of-flight (ToF) system. One example provides, a method comprising emitting, via a light source, amplitude-modulated light toward an object, acquiring, via an image sensor comprising a plurality of pixels, a plurality of image frames capturing light emitted from the light source that is reflected by the object, wherein the plurality of image frames are acquired at two or more different frequencies of the amplitude-modulated light and collectively form a multifrequency frame, and for each pixel of the multifrequency frame, determining a brightness level, applying an adaptive denoising process by setting a kernel size based on the brightness level, and performing a phase unwrapping process to determine a depth value for the pixel.

Examples are disclosed herein relating to signal processing in a time-of-flight (ToF) system. One example provides, a method comprising emitting, via a light source, amplitude-modulated light toward an object, acquiring, via an image sensor comprising a plurality of pixels, a plurality of image frames capturing light emitted from the light source that is reflected by the object, wherein the plurality of image frames are acquired at two or more different frequencies of the amplitude-modulated light and collectively form a multifrequency frame, and for each pixel of the multifrequency frame, determining a brightness level, applying an adaptive denoising process by setting a kernel size based on the brightness level, and performing a phase unwrapping process to determine a depth value for the pixel.

The present technology relates to a lighting device, a method for controlling the lighting device, and a distance measurement module that make it possible to reduce a cyclic error.

The lighting device includes a plurality of light sources including a first light source and a second light source, and a drive unit that drives the plurality of light sources. The drive unit causes the first light source and the second light source to emit light at different timings and light emission periods to cause a light emission intensity by the plurality of light sources to have symmetry in a time direction in a time width of one cycle around a peak value or a minimum value. The present technology can be applied to, for example, a distance measurement module that measures a distance to a subject, and the like.

A method for Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensing of a scene is provided. The method includes performing, by a ToF sensor, a plurality of first ToF measurements using a first modulation frequency to obtain first measurement values. A respective correlation function of each of the plurality of first ToF measurements is periodic and exhibits an increasing amplitude over distance within a measurement range of the ToF sensor. The method additionally includes determining a distance to an object in the scene based on the first measurement values.

A method for Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensing of a scene is provided. The method includes performing, by a ToF sensor, a plurality of first ToF measurements using a first modulation frequency to obtain first measurement values. A respective correlation function of each of the plurality of first ToF measurements is periodic and exhibits an increasing amplitude over distance within a measurement range of the ToF sensor. The method additionally includes determining a distance to an object in the scene based on the first measurement values.

A ladar system and related method are disclosed where the system includes a ladar transmitter and a ladar receiver. The ladar transmitter transmits ladar pulses into a field of view, and the ladar receiver receives ladar pulse returns from objects in the field of view. The ladar receiver comprises a cross-receiver, the cross-receiver comprising a first 1D array of photodetector cells and a second 1D array of photodetector cells that are oriented differently relative to each other.