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US 8,803,967 B2Granted
Time of flight camera with rectangular field of illumination
AssigneeMESA Imaging AG
InventorsThierry Oggier, Michael Richter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Improved field-of-illumination (FOI) and field-of-view (FOV) matching for 3D time-of-flight cameras is provided using light emitters with rectangular reflectors. A better adjustment of the FOI with the camera's FOV has the following advantages: optimal use of emitted light and reduced multi-path problems. Furthermore, embodiments bring the benefit for rather low-cost customization of the illumination to match the FOI to the specified FOV.
Claims6
A time of flight camera, comprising:
- a substrate, forming a front cover of the camera;
- rectangular frusto pyramidal reflectors formed in a surface of the substrate, wherein each rectangular frusto pyramidal reflector formed in the surface of the substrate includes a center port;
- a light emitter located at a bottom of each frusto pyramidal reflector in the center port for producing modulated light for illuminating a scene;
- a time of flight detector chip for detecting light from the scene;
- and
- an aperture located in a port for collecting light from the scene and focusing the light onto the detector chip,
- wherein the frusto pyramidal reflector uniformly directs the modulated light from the light emitter onto the scene so that a rectangular field of illumination matches a rectangular field of view, and light power at each corner of the field of view is equivalent to light power at a center of the field of view.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.