Nxp B.v.

Nxp Usa, Inc.

Mark Steigemann

Maxim Kulesh

Gustavo Adolfo Guarin Aristizabal

Sebastián André Fatjó Carvajal

Sebastián André FatjÓ Carvajal

The disclosure relates to time of flight calculations for a lidar transceiver. Example embodiments include a method of calculating time of flight of a lidar signal, the method comprising: i) transmitting a light pulse to start () an acquisition time period having a plurality of successive time portions; ii) for each successive time portion, if a photon is received (): iia) recording () a time at which the photon is received; iib) updating () a histogram to record a cumulative count of photons received during the time portion; iic) calculating () a time difference between the time at which the photon is received relative to a reference point of the time portion; iid) updating () a cumulative total of the calculated time difference for the time portion; iii) repeating steps i) to iid) for a succession of N transmitted light pulses; iv) identifying () a peak in a time portion of the histogram; and v) estimating () a time of flight from the cumulative total of the calculated time difference for the time portion of the histogram containing the identified peak.

Time of flight calculation with inter-bin delta estimation

The disclosure relates to a radar system in which multiple radar transceivers are synchronised with a common clock signal. In example embodiments a radar system () comprises: a control module (); a processing module (); a plurality of radar transceivers (); and a communications bus () connecting the control module () to one or more of the plurality of radar transceivers (), wherein the control module () is configured to generate a first clock signal and transmit the first clock signal via the communications bus () to one or more of the plurality of transceivers () and to receive radar data from the plurality of transceivers () via the communications bus (), wherein each of the plurality of transceivers () is configured to generate a second clock signal extracted from the first clock signal and to transmit and receive frequency synchronized radar signals based on the second clock signal, and wherein the processing module () is configured to: calculate a phase difference between the frequency synchronized radar signals; compensate for the measured phase difference; and process received radar signals from the plurality of transceivers ().

Distributed radar system

Various example embodiments are directed to apparatuses and methods including an apparatus having sensor circuitry and processing circuitry. In one example, sensor circuitry produces and senses detected signals corresponding to physical objects located in an operational region relative to a location of the sensor circuitry. The processing circuitry records and organizes information associated with the detected signals in a plurality of sub-histograms respectively associated with different accuracy metrics for corresponding sub-regions of the operational region, each of the plurality of sub-histograms including a set of histogram bins characterized by a bin width linked to its accuracy metric, and refines at least one of the accuracy metric by adapting one or more of the bin widths dynamically in response to the detected signals.

Histogram-based signal detection with sub-regions corresponding to adaptive bin widths

Embodiments of a system and method are disclosed. In an embodiment, a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system that can include a sensor circuit comprising a controller unit, a transmitter, a gating circuit, and a receiver element, wherein the gating circuit is connected to the controller unit and to the receiver element, wherein signals detected by the sensor circuit correspond to at least one physical object located in an operating region with respect to a location of the sensor circuit and based on multiple measurements. The gating circuit can range-gate the receiver element based on a range-gating waveform, and the controller unit can provide a phase-delay parameter for phase shifting the range-gating waveform with different phase values relative to a light signal transmitted by the transmitter for different measurements by the sensor circuit.

Growing community of inventors

Ebstorf, Germany

Mark Steigemann