LiDAR Differential Comparator Circuit for Time-of-Flight Amplitude Estimation

The patent replaces expensive, complex high-speed ADC digitization hardware with a simpler, cheaper differential comparator circuit that achieves comparable measurement precision. The comparator-based approach uses basic electronic components rather than costly high-speed conversion hardware, directly addressing the cost and complexity issue while maintaining timing accuracy for time-of-flight measurements.

The patent extracts only the essential timing information needed for distance measurement by using threshold-based detection on the differentiated signal, rather than capturing and processing the entire digitized waveform. This extraction approach obtains sufficient measurement data without the overhead of full waveform digitization, reducing both hardware complexity and data processing requirements.

The patent applies differentiation (analogous to detecting vibration or rate of change) to the received signal before thresholding. By detecting the rising and falling edges of the differentiated waveform, the system preserves information about signal amplitude and shape that would otherwise be lost in simple thresholding. The amplitude can be estimated from the width of the differentiated pulse, maintaining precision while keeping the system simple and inexpensive.

The patent transforms the signal representation by differentiating it, which changes the characteristics of the waveform (analogous to changing color). This transformation makes the signal more suitable for threshold-based detection while preserving amplitude information, as the differentiated signal's pulse width encodes the original signal's amplitude characteristics.