US 12,111,423 B2Granted

Electronic apparatus and method

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

InventorsHidenori Okuni, Tuan Thanh Ta, Satoshi Kondo, Akihide Sai

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Abstract

An electronic apparatus capable of determining a distance to an object based on reflected light provided by a reflection of a pulsed light on the object includes an input terminal configured to receive a signal of intensity of reception light. Processing circuitry determines a measurement range capable of specifying a peak of the reception light based on the intensity of the reception light, detects the reflected light by specifying the peak of the reception light within the measurement range, determines, based on the measurement range, a duration from when the pulsed light is emitted until when the reflected light is received, and determines a distance from the electronic apparatus to the object according to the duration.

Claims21

Dependent claims

An electronic apparatus of determining a distance, comprising:

a light source that emits pulsed lights;
a receiver configured to receive lights including reflected pulse lights and output a signal indicating intensity of the reception lights;
and
processing circuitry configured to:
estimate reception intensity of light based on the signal, wherein the reception intensity does not include reflected light reflected by an object;
determine a period of time during which intensity data of the reflected light is generated, based on the reception intensity and a reflectivity of the reflected light of the object that is a target of distance measurement;
determine a time-of-flight duration from when the pulsed lights are emitted from the light source until when the lights including the reflected light are received by the receiver, based on the reception intensity in the period of time;
and
determine the distance from the electronic apparatus to the object based on the determined time-of-flight duration.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 16/564,840Filed 9 Sep 2019
Priority: JP 2019-05017718 Mar 2019
Published: US 2020/0300988 A124 Sep 2020
Granted: 8 Oct 2024
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G01S 7/4865
Receivers: time delay measurement, e.g. time-of-flight measurement, time of arrival measurement or determining the exact position of a peak
G01S 7/4808
Of systems according to group G01S17/00: evaluating distance, position or velocity data
G01S 7/4863
Circuits for detection, sampling, integration or read-out: detector arrays, e.g. charge-transfer gates
G01S 7/4873
Extracting wanted echo signals , e.g. pulse detection: by deriving and controlling a threshold value

Family

US 2020/0300988 A1Pre-grant publication · published 24 Sep 2020
US 12,111,423 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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