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.

Date of Patent:
Feb. 27, 2024

Filed:

Dec. 17, 2020
Applicant:

Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc, Redmond, WA (US);

Inventors:

John Peter Godbaz, Sunnyvale, CA (US);

Brock McCray Roland, San Bruno, CA (US);

Rui Jin, Mountain View, CA (US);

Minseok Oh, Santa Clara, CA (US);

Assignee:
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01S 17/10 (2020.01); G01S 7/483 (2006.01); G01S 17/26 (2020.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G01S 17/10 (2013.01); G01S 7/483 (2013.01); G01S 17/26 (2020.01);
Abstract

One example provides a method of operating a time-of-flight camera system comprising an illumination source and an image sensor. The method comprises operating the illumination source and the image sensor to control a plurality of integration cycles and a plurality of readout cycles. In each integration cycle, the method comprises performing a plurality of pulse width modulated (PWM) illumination cycles where each PWM illumination cycle is separated from one or more adjacent PWM illumination cycles by a non-illumination cycle. For each PWM illumination cycle, the method comprises directing photocharge to in-pixel memory for each pixel that is performing image integration and for each non-illumination cycle conducting photocharge away from the in-pixel memory for each pixel that is performing image integration. The readout cycle comprises, for each pixel that performed image integration, reading a charge stored in the in-pixel memory after the integration cycle.


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