A 3D imager is presented capable of capturing the depth map of an arbitrary scene. Depth is measured by computing the time-of-flight of a ray of light as it leaves the source and is reflected by the objects in the scene. The round-trip time is converted to digital code independently for each pixel using a CMOS time-to-digital converter. To reach millimetric accuracies an array of 32×32 highly sensitive, ultra-low jitter CMOS detectors capable of detecting a single photon is used. The scene is illuminated using a cone of low power pulsed laser light, thus no mechanical scanning devices or expensive optical equipment are required.
Tobias Kippenberg, Junqiu Liu, Maxim Karpov, Anton Lukashchuk
Christian Enz, Yves Bellouard, Assim Boukhayma, Andrea Kraxner, Olivier Bernard