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:
Dec. 02, 2003
Filed:
Mar. 27, 2002
Peter Alan Levine, West Windsor, NJ (US);
Taner Dosluoglu, Plainsboro, NJ (US);
Nathaniel Joseph McCaffrey, Rosemont, NJ (US);
John Robertson Tower, Yardley, PA (US);
Sarnoff Corporation, Princeton, NJ (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for resolving relative times-of-arrival of a plurality of light pulses includes a plurality of drift-field detectors. Each drift-field detector includes a light sensor and a semiconductor drift region. Each light sensor generates an electrical charge from at least one of the plurality of light pulses. Each semiconductor drift region receives the electrical charge from its respective light sensor and, pursuant to an electric field therein, produces a spatial charge distribution. The spatial charge distribution for each of the semiconductor drift regions is stored in an analog storage device associated therewith. The relative positions of the charge distributions in the semiconductor drift regions are used to calculate the relative times-of-arrival of the light pulses.