Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation

Takuma Hiramatsu

Takayuki Shimizu

Hideki Sato

Yoshiki Ikuta

Mototaka Taneya

Koji Takahashi

Atsushi Shimonaka

Naruichi Yokogawa

Yasuyuki Shirasaka

Kei Yamamoto

Isamu Kawabe

Ryohhei Tada

Naoyuki Morimoto

A first SPAD array on which at least one first light beam that is at least one pulse light beam is incident and which is operated in Geiger mode, a second SPAD array on which at least one second light beam resulting from the at least one first light beam reflected by a detection object is incident and which is operated in Geiger mode, a voltage generation unit that applies a reverse bias voltage to the first SPAD array and the second SPAD array, and a SPAD photon detection rate controller that adjusts and controls a SPAD photon detection rate in accordance with a first photon detection rate indicating a rate of the number of at least one pulse signal output by the second SPAD array upon incidence of the at least one second light beam relative to the number of the at least one pulse light beam are included.

Light detection device and electronic apparatus comprising plural SPAD arrays with a photon detection rate controller

An optical sensor for appropriately updating a crosstalk value is provided with: a photon-counting type of first light-receiving unit for receiving target object reflected light and cover panel reflected light; and a determination circuit that determines whether or not the target object reflected light is received by the first light-receiving unit, on the basis of a first received light pulse signal that is based on at least one of the target object reflected light and the cover panel reflected light, and a reference pulse signal.

Optical sensor and electronic device

A selection circuit selects one of digital values respectively output from a TDCand a TDC. A histogram generation circuit generates a histogram indicating a relationship between a bin number and a frequency by counting up the frequency of the bin number according to the digital value selected by the selection circuit.

Optical sensor, distance measurement device, and electronic apparatus

A TOF ranging sensor according to Embodiment includes: a light-emitting unit that radiates light beams to subspaces; a light-receiving unit that receives light and forms images of the light on light-receiving elements allocated to the subspaces; and a space control unit that independently controls each element group that includes a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element that are allocated to a common one of the subspaces.

Ranging sensor

An optical sensor of the present invention changes a light-emitting period of a light-emitting element and a period of a reference clock that is used by a time difference extracting circuit, depending on whether or not a digital value that is output from a first digital calculating portion exceeds a reference value in a determination period. With this, there is achieved an optical sensor capable of maintaining both of measurement accuracy at short distance and measurement accuracy at long distance when a housing panel is present between the optical sensor and a detection target.

A light sensor or the like that has an improved measurement speed is realized. A light sensor includes a computation unit that computes a distance between the light sensor and a sensing object on the basis of a difference between a center position of reflection light, which indicates a center position of distribution of light reception probability of a first light receiving unit in a first histogram, and a center position of reference light, which indicates a center position of distribution of light reception probability of a second light receiving unit in a second histogram.

Light sensor, electronic device, computation apparatus, and method for measuring distance between light sensor and sensing object

An optical sensor configured to reduce a measurement time while the accuracy of the optical sensor is maintained is realized. An initial configuration circuit () includes a counter configured to perform counting of the number of pulse outputs from a first light-receiving unit () in first to nth regions obtained by dividing each cycle of a reference clock into n equal parts, determines, among the first to nth regions, a region in which a counter value is largest, and the initial configuration circuit causes a first DLL circuit () to perform a converging operation to the region determined.

Effects of ambient light are suppressed, and distance to a detection object is measured with high precision. A ranging sensor includes a VCSEL, a SPAD array that has multiple SPADs that detect photons of pulse light emitted by the VCSEL, a SPAD array that has multiple SPADs that detect photons of reflected light where the pulse light has been reflected by a detection object, a DLL that measures a time difference between a pulse signal output from the SPADs of the SPAD array and a pulse signal output from the SPADs of the SPAD array, an ambient-light-incident SPAD determining unit that determines a SPAD on which ambient light is incident, based on pulse signals output from SPADs of the SPAD array when the VCSEL is not emitting light, and a SPAD front-end circuit that stops operation of the SPAD for which determination is made that ambient light is incident.

Photodetector and portable electronic equipment

A ranging sensor includes a light emitting unit includes a plurality of light emitting elements, a light receiving unit including a plurality of light receiving elements, a space control unit, a position estimation unit, and a TOF signal processing unit, operates in cooperation with an RGB camera module, and generates target distance information for generating three-dimensional position information. The space control unit independently controls each element group including a light emitting element and a light receiving element allocated to a common subspace. The position estimation unit estimates, from received light amount distribution of a plurality of light receiving elements receiving a reflected light beam from the target existing in a space of each subspace, a position of the target in the space of the subspace group. The TOF signal processing unit performs TOF signal processing in parallel with channels whose number is less than that of light emitting elements.

An optical sensor includes a time difference extraction circuit for extracting a time difference based on the distance to a target on the basis of a first received light pulse signal from a first light receiving unit, a reference cycle, and a second received light pulse signal from a second light receiving unit, and a determination circuit for determining whether a crosstalk value can be calculated on the basis of the time difference extracted by the time difference extraction circuit and the reference cycle.

Whether an optical delay on a space optical path is within a light emission cycle is accurately determined without narrowing a range of a measurable distance in the light emission cycle. A DFFthat divides an output pulse of a first DLL () by two to provide a first time offset and a DFFthat divides an output pulse of a second DLL () by two to provide a second time offset are included, and at least following mathematical formulas (1) and (2) are satisfied:1=&#xbd;&#x2003;&#x2003;(1)0&#x3c;1&#x3c;(&#x2212;1)&#xb7;1&#x2003;&#x2003;(2)

There is provided a VCSEL drive circuit that causes a VCSEL to emit pulsed light in a light emission period, including a drive adjustment unit that adjust a first voltage which is a voltage of drains of a PMOS transistor and an NMOS transistor in a constant current circuit and a second voltage which is a voltage of a drain of an NMOS transistor that drives the VCSEL to be the same voltage in a pre-light emission period before the light emission period.

Light-emitting element drive circuit and portable electronic instrument

Disturbance noise is distinguished and an appropriate detection result is output in accordance with a state of each disturbance noise. A signal processing circuit () of a photodetection device () includes non-synchronous detection units () that detect existence of a light reception signal which is not synchronous with a light emitting drive timing in at least one of a case where it is determined that a value of the light reception signal exceeds a predetermined first threshold and a case where the value of the light reception signal becomes less than a predetermined second threshold in a non-synchronous detection period except a synchronous detection period in a detection period in the signal processing circuit (). In addition, is a case where existence of the light reception signal which is not synchronous with the light emitting drive timing is detected by the non-synchronous detection units (), the signal processing circuit () maintains a result of the detection of the existence/non-existence of the light reception signal acquired by the synchronous detection unit in a subsequent detection period.

Photodetection device with synchronous and non-synchronous light detection for reducing noise and electronic apparatus

An optical modulation-type detection device has a noise detection mode having (i) an offset canceling (hereinafter referred to as 'OC') period in which (a) the light-reception signal pathway of a pulse signal converting section is cut off so that an offset of the pulse signal converting section is suppressed and (b) the light-reception signal pathway of the pulse signal converting section is reconnected while a state in which the offset is suppressed is being maintained, at an end of the OC period, and (ii) an asynchronous reception period in which whether or not asynchronous reception occurs is detected after the first period, and an object detection mode having a synchronous reception period in which whether or not synchronous reception occurs is detected after the asynchronous reception is not detected in the noise detection mode.

Optical modulation-type detection device and electronic device

A light source device for radiating a stimulated emission from a semiconductor laser to outside via a multiple scattering optical system, which system has a first region located adjacent to the semiconductor laser and a second region that abuts on the first region and reaches the outside. The first region contains scatterers at a higher density than the second region does. The light source device has an amount of near-field pattern speckles &#x3c3;of 3&#xd7;10or more. The second region may have a lens portion as a magnifier for at least a principle part of a secondary planar light source formed at an interface between the first and second regions.

Growing community of inventors

Sakai, Japan

Takuma Hiramatsu