High-speed position detector using new row-parallel architecture for fast collision prevention system

A high-speed position detector has wide variety of application fields such as real-time range finding and high-speed visual feedback in robot vision. In this paper, a row-parallel sensor architecture for high-speed position detection is presented. The edge of activated pixels is quickly detected by a row-parallel search circuit and its encoding cycles of N-pixel horizontal resolution are O(log N). The architecture keeps high-speed position detection in high pixel resolution. We have designed and fabricated the prototype position detector with a 128 × 16 pixel array in 0.35 μm CMOS process. The measurement results show it achieves high-speed detection of 450 ns. The high-speed position detection of the scanning sheet beam is demonstrated.