A gated time of flight (GT-TOF) range camera determines distances to features in a scene that it images by illuminating the scene typically with a train of light pulses. After a substantially same time delay following transmission of each light pulse in the light pulse train, the GT-TOF camera gates ON for a short exposure period during which pixels in a photosensor of the camera are sensitive to, and register light incident on the pixels. During the short exposure period following a light pulse, a pixel imaging light from a given feature in the scene registers an amount of light that the given feature reflects from the light pulse back to the camera. The camera uses a sum of the amounts of reflected light that the pixel registers for the given feature during the exposure periods for all the light pulses in the light pulse train to determine a round trip time, tR, for light to travel from the camera to the given feature and back to the camera. The round trip time tR for the feature and the speed of light are used to determine a distance to the feature.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds