Contactless distance sensor and method for carrying out a contactless distance measurement

A machine-implemented method of processing distance measurements of a target object without contact at the k-th time, the method comprising:

• obtaining, from a distance measuring circuit coupled to a non-contact distance sensor, a plurality of measurements of distance of said target object to the non-contact distance sensor, the plurality of measurements corresponding to a plurality of successive time intervals;
• calculating a first average distance of the number N of distance measurements of said target object, said number N of distance measurements following one after the other and including the last distance measurement carried out at the i-th time;
• calculating a second average distance of a number M of distance measurements of said target object, said number M of distance measurements being a subset of said number N of distance measurements with the number M being less than the number N, following one after the other and including the last distance measurement carried out at the i-th time;
• determining a first difference between a function value of the first average distance and a function value of the second average distance;
• comparing said first difference with a first threshold;
• and
• providing an output as a processed distance value of said target object to the distance sensor, a process distance value corresponding to a value function of said first average distance if said first difference is less than or equal to said first threshold, and the process distance value otherwise corresponding to a value function of said last distance measurement.

A distance sensor to calculate distances of a target object without contact, the distance sensor comprising:

• a contactless measuring circuit that obtains a plurality of measurements, without contact, of the distance of said target object at a plurality of time intervals, and in response generates a number of output signals that provide values representative of the measurements of distance to said target object;
• a first processor circuit communicatively coupled to receive and process said output signals from said measuring circuit, to calculate a first average distance from said target object based on an average of a number N of distance measurements in output signals from said measuring circuit, said number of N distance measurements being consecutive in time and including a last distance measurement obtained by said measuring circuit in a period of time;
• a second processor circuit communicatively coupled to receive and process said output signals from said measuring circuit, to calculate a second average distance from said target object based on an average of a number M of distance measurements in output from said measuring circuit, said number M of distance measurements being a subset with the number M less than the number N of said number N of distance measurements, consecutive in time and including the last distance measurement obtained by said measuring circuit in the period of time;
• a first comparator circuit communicatively coupled to receive and calculate a first difference between a function value of said first average distance and a function value of said second average distance;
• and
• a third processor circuit communicatively coupled to receive and compare said first difference with a first threshold and to provide as an output of the distance sensor a processed distance value, said processed distance value being equal to a value function of said first average distance if said first difference is less than or equal to said first threshold, and the processed distance value otherwise being equal to a value function of said last distance measurement obtained by said measuring circuit.