Patent · US Expired

Method for measuring the distance to at least one target

US6516286B1 · kind B1 · utility

27Cited by
13References
19Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 4, 2000
Grant dateFeb 4, 2003
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 4, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01S17/10
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

To measure the distance to targets, local maxima exceeding a threshold (&egr;) and being associated with a correlation function (f) are determined, the reference values of which are obtained from scalar products of a received signal (e), produced by reflections of an optical pulse by the targets, and number of comparison functions, copies of a reference function (r) which are shifted as a function of time, and the transit times of the reflections are derived from the time-related shifts of the corresponding comparison functions. By interpolation with respect to the time-related shifts or optimization thereof, for example by adjusting them so that the orthogonal distance of the received signal (e) from the vector space which is spanned by the corresponding comparison functions is a minimum, the transit times can be determined even more accurately.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.