Single pass peak detection in lidar sensor data stream

A system to determine a traveling time for a light pulse between a light pulse source and a pixel of a light sensor array, the system comprising:

• a plurality of registers;
• a plurality of counters, each counter associated with a corresponding register;
• and
• a timestamp evaluator configured to determine whether each timestamp value of a plurality of timestamp values equals a value stored in one of the plurality of registers,
• if the value stored in a register equals zero, the timestamp evaluator replaces the value of the register with the timestamp value and increments a value of the counter associated with the register,
• if the timestamp value equals the value stored in a register, the timestamp evaluator increments the value of the counter associated with the register, and
• if the timestamp value does not equal the value stored in a register, the timestamp evaluator decrements the value of all of the counters associated with all of the registers, and
• after all timestamp values in the plurality of timestamp values have been evaluated, the timestamp evaluator further configured to:
• initialize a value of each counter,
• determine whether each timestamp value in the plurality of timestamp values equals the value stored in a register,
• if the timestamp value equals the value stored in a register, increment the value of the counter associated with the register storing the value that equals the timestamp value, and
• determine the timestamp value of the register associated with the value of the counter that is a greatest to be the timestamp value representing the traveling time for a light pulse between the light pulse source and the pixel.

A system to determine a traveling time for a light pulse between a light pulse source and a pixel of a light sensor array, the system comprising:

• a plurality of registers;
• a plurality of counters, each counter associated with a corresponding register;
• and
• a timestamp evaluator configured to determine whether each timestamp value of a plurality of timestamp values equals a value stored in a register;
• if the value stored in a register equals zero, the timestamp evaluator replaces the value of the register with the timestamp value and increments the counter associated with the register;
• if the timestamp value equals the value stored in a register, the timestamp evaluator increments the counter associated with the register storing the value that equals the timestamp value;
• if the timestamp value does not equal the value stored in a register, the timestamp evaluator replaces the value of the register with the timestamp value associated with a least count and increments by 1 the value of the counter associated with the register having the value that was replaced;
• and
• after all timestamp values in the plurality of timestamp values have been evaluated, the timestamp evaluator further configured to determine the timestamp value stored in the register having a greatest counter value to be the timestamp value representing the traveling time for a light pulse between the light pulse source and the pixel.