US 2021/0333404 A1 · IMAGING SYSTEM WITH TIME-OF-FLIGHT SENSING

Abstract

A time-of-flight (TOF) sensing system may include an illumination module and a sensor module. The illumination module may emit light having a reduced illumination duty cycle such as a high peak power and low width illumination pulse. The emitted light may reflect off of one or more objects as reflected light. The sensor module may include pixels operable based on a sensor modulation signal to generated image charge portions in response to the reflected light. The sensor modulation signal may be selectively suppressed after a period of time corresponding to a distance of interest. Processing circuitry in the TOF sensing system may obtain TOF information based on a phase difference between the emitted light and the image charge portions determined by cross-correlation data. By using the illumination pulse and the selective sensor modulation suppression, TOF sensing may exhibit reduced aliasing issues and improved ambient light rejection.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A time-of-flight sensing system comprising:

an illumination source configured to emit a light pulse for a time-of-flight sensing operation;
pixels configured to receive reflected light resulting from the emitted light pulse and to generate charge in response to the received light during the time-of-flight sensing operation;
driver circuitry configured to control the pixels based on a sensor modulation signal having a modulation frequency during the time-of-flight sensing operation;
and
processing circuitry configured to generate cross-correlation data based on the generated charge to identify time-of-flight information.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Imaging system with time-of-flight sensing

Life of this patent

Imaging system with time-of-flight sensing

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20