Patent ID: 9106902
Filing Date: 2015-08-11
Classification: G01B,H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for recognizing the distance of an object, the apparatus comprising: a lighting unit comprising one or more light sources and one or more optical elements, and for outputting a beam having at least two different focal positions; a beam receiving unit comprising an image sensor, and for receiving a returning beam reflected or scattered from the object; and an image processor for detecting the distance to the object from an image obtained by the beam receiving unit upon receiving the beam output by the lighting unit and reflected or scattered from the object, wherein the one or more optical elements form two or more segmented regions, at least one of the segmented regions having a focal position different from those of other segmented regions, and a pattern formed by the at least one segmented region has characteristics different from those of one or more patterns formed by other segmented regions, wherein the depth calculator determines a sub-grid region in the one or more optical elements corresponding to a region in the image based on the distribution of the characteristics, and obtains depth information of the region by using the difference between the original coordinates of the region in which a beam having passed through the determined sub-grid region is reflected from a relatively distant position and imaged on the sensor and the coordinates of the region corresponding to the determined sub-grid region.