Method of setting a focus to acquire images of a moving object and corresponding device

A device, comprising:

• one or more inputs and one or more outputs;
• and
• circuitry, coupled to at least one of the one or more inputs and to at least one of the one or more outputs, and which, during an image acquisition cycle:
• estimates a speed of a moving object with respect to the device based on a plurality of distances measured by at least one time-of-flight sensor, wherein an acquisition time of at least one of the measured plurality of distances precedes a time of activation of the image acquisition cycle;
• estimates a distance between the device and the moving object at an effective image acquisition time based on the estimated speed of the moving object and a period of time between the time of activation of the image acquisition cycle and the effective image acquisition time;
• and
• controls acquisition of an image of the moving object at the effective image acquisition time, the controlling including setting a focus to acquire the image of the moving object at the effective image acquisition time based on the estimated distance.

A system, comprising:

• at least one time-of-flight sensor;
• image acquisition circuitry, which, in operation, acquires images of objects;
• objective optics including at least one lens;
• and
• auto-focus circuitry, which, in operation:
• measures a plurality of distances using the at least one time-of-flight sensor;
• and,
• during an image acquisition cycle,
• estimates a speed of a moving object relative to the objective optics based on the plurality of distances measured by the at least one time-of-flight sensor, wherein an acquisition time of at least one of the measured plurality of distances precedes a time of activation of the image acquisition cycle;
• estimates a distance between the objective optics and the moving object at an effective image acquisition time based on the estimated speed of the moving object and a period of time between the time of activation of the image acquisition cycle of the image acquisition circuitry and the effective image acquisition time;
• and
• sets a focus of the at least one lens based on the estimated distance.

A non-transitory computer-readable memory medium containing contents which when executed by an image acquisition device cause the image acquisition device to perform a method, the method comprising:

• measuring a plurality of distances using at least one time-of-flight sensor;
• estimating, during an image acquisition cycle of the image acquisition device, a speed of a moving object in a field of view of the image acquisition device based on the plurality of distances measured by the at least one time-of-flight sensor of the image acquisition device, wherein an acquisition time of at least one of the measured plurality of distances precedes a time of activation of the image acquisition cycle;
• estimating, during the image acquisition cycle, a distance between the image acquisition device and the moving object at an effective image acquisition time based on the estimated speed of the moving object and a period of time between the time of activation of the image acquisition cycle of the image acquisition device and the effective image acquisition time;
• setting, during the image acquisition cycle, a focus of the image acquisition device based on the estimated distance;
• and
• acquiring, during the image acquisition cycle, an image of the moving object at the effective acquisition time using the focus set by the image acquisition device.