A new approach to avoid walk error in pulsed laser rangefinding

Author

Palojärvi, Pasi ; Ruotsalainen, Tarmo ; Kostamovaara, Juha

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Oulu Univ., Finland

Volume

1

fYear

1999

fDate

36342

Firstpage

258

Abstract

In this paper a new way to combine timing discrimination and time interval measurement in pulsed laser rangefinding is presented. The aim is to eliminate the dependency of amplitude from the timing result, i.e. walk error. The idea is based on a time-to-amplitude converter where the input transistors are used as “soft switches” by controlling them with an analog input signal. The principle of the operation has been presented together with measurement results of a test circuit implemented in a 0.8 μm BiCMOS process. A measured walk error of ±3.5 ps has been achieved with the input signal dynamic range of 1:19

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; convertors; laser ranging; measurement errors; time measurement; timing; 0.8 micron; BiCMOS process; analog input signal; input signal dynamic range; input transistors; pulsed laser rangefinding; soft switches; test circuit; time interval measurement; time-to-amplitude converter; timing discrimination; timing result; walk error; Circuit testing; Delay; Logic; Optical filters; Optical pulses; Optical receivers; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse measurements; Time measurement; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems, 1999. ISCAS '99. Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5471-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.1999.777852

Filename

777852