Optical Sensor with Grating Elements for Compact Distance Measurement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional distance measurement and gesture recognition systems are costly and large in size, and require additional light sources, limiting their effectiveness and efficiency.
Innovation Solution
An optical sensor system utilizing two optical sensing pixels and grating elements with phase shifts, formed by stacked metal layers, which eliminates the need for additional light sources by determining incident light angles and object positions through intensity variations, enabling low-cost and compact design.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional triangulation method or time-of-flight technique is used for distance measurement, then measurement accuracy is improved, but system cost and system size increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple functions (distance measurement and gesture recognition) into a single optical sensor system using one image sensor instead of requiring separate sensors for each function. This integration reduces system cost, size, and complexity while maintaining measurement accuracy through the use of grating elements for phase detection
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the illumination function from the system by eliminating the need for additional active light sources. The system uses ambient light or reflected light from a single light source, removing the costly and space-consuming TOF illumination hardware while preserving distance measurement capability through phase detection of reflected light
2Measurement precision
If two image sensors are used for gesture recognition with background removal, then gesture recognition accuracy is improved, but system size and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges gesture recognition functionality into the same optical sensor system that performs distance measurement. By using a single image sensor with grating elements for phase detection, the system can extract both depth information for gesture recognition and position information, eliminating the need for separate image sensors and reducing overall system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The optical sensor system is designed to perform multiple functions simultaneously: distance measurement, gesture recognition, and background removal. The grating elements and phase detection mechanism serve universal purposes for all these functions, allowing one sensor system to replace what would traditionally require multiple specialized sensors
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system achieves accurate two-dimensional and three-dimensional position detection and gesture recognition with reduced component count and size, while eliminating the need for additional light sources, resulting in a low-cost and compact optical sensor system.
Implementation Method 1
two grating elements have a phase shift from each other and are respectively above the two optical sensing pixels
Data Source
AI summary
An optical sensor includes at least two optical sensing pixels and at least two different grating elements. These grating elements are disposed above these optical sensing pixels correspondingly.