The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 13, 2023
Filed:
Jan. 19, 2021
Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc, Redmond, WA (US);
Onur C. Akkaya, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Cyrus S. Bamji, Fremont, CA (US);
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A zoned time-of-flight (ToF) arrangement includes a sensor and a steerable light source that produces an illumination beam having a smaller angular extent than the field of view (FoV) of the sensor. The illumination beam is steerable within the sensor's FoV to optionally move through the sensor's FoV or dwell in a particular region of interest. Steering the illumination beam and sequentially generating a depth map of the illuminated region permits advantageous operations over ToF arrangements that simultaneously illuminate the entire sensor's FoV. For example, ambient performance, maximum range, and jitter are improved. Multiple steering alternative configurations are disclosed, including mechanical, electro optical, and electrowetting solutions.