Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated

Cedes Safety & Automation Ag

Rockwell Automation Switzerland Gmbh

Rockwell Automation Safety Ag

Manfred Norbert Stein

Suresh Ramanujan Nair

Richard Galera

Carl Meinherz

Martin Hardegger

Elik I Fooks

Danilo Dorizzi

Bas Albers

Clau Lombriser

Richard Casty

Craig Martin Brockman

Robert M Black

Guido Baumgartner

Reto Berner

Wei Jie Chen

Roger Merz

Steven A Eisenbrown

Eric Matthew Lutz

Systems and methods are provided for utilizing time of flight sensors in an industrial automation environment. The method includes employing a multi pixel camera associated with a time of flight sensor to detect an object located within a defined or bounded target area, comparing pixels with adjacent pixels associated with an image of the object captured by the multi pixel camera, identifying the object as being a colored, texture, or highly reflective object, and controlling industrial machinery based on the identification of the object entering the target area.

Time of flight (TOF) sensors as replacement for standard photoelectric sensors

A system for calibrating a color sensing pixel based upon the distance between the color sensing pixel and an object. The distance is determined by measuring the phase shift of electromagnetic radiation as reflected from the surface of the object compared with the wave profile of the electromagnetic radiation incident on the object surface. The color sensing pixel is associated with a Time-of-Flight (ToF) pixel which is employed to determine the distance of the color sensing pixel. The electromagnetic radiation can be from any part of the electromagnetic spectrum, in particular the infrared and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The color sensing pixel and the ToF pixel can reside on the same semiconductor or on disparate semiconductors.

Color sensor insensitive to distance variations

Growing community of inventors

Graubuenden, Switzerland

Manfred Norbert Stein