Patent ID: 9709695
Date: 2017-07-18
CPC Classifications: F16P,G01V

Claim:
1. A sensor apparatus comprising: a light projecting unit having a plurality of light emitting elements; a light receiving unit having a plurality of light receiving elements that correspond to the plurality of light emitting elements, each of the plurality of light receiving elements being configured to receive light emitted by a corresponding light emitting element and generate a light reception signal; a control unit having a first mode in which at least one of a plurality of optical axes formed by a corresponding at least one of the plurality of light emitting elements and the plurality of light receiving elements is set as a sensing optical axis, and a second mode in which an additional sensing optical axis is set as a sensing optical axis by adding an optical axis to the sensing optical axis in the first mode, the control unit being configured to determine a non-sensing state and a sensing state based on the light reception signal of each of the plurality of light receiving elements set as a sensing optical axis in respective ones of the first and second modes; and an output unit configured to perform output according to a determination result of the control unit of the non-sensing state and the sensing state, wherein the control unit switches to the second mode from the first mode when a change occurs in the first mode, the change corresponding to a change from the non-sensing state, in which the light reception signal of each of the plurality of light receiving elements for all of the sensing optical axes of the first mode correspond to a light receiving state, to the sensing state, in which the light reception signal of the one of the plurality of light receiving elements for the at least one of the sensing optical axes of the first mode corresponds to a blocked state.