Patent ID: 10908266

Abstract:
A time of flight sensor has a photosensitive image region (1) comprising a linear array of M pixels; a storage region (2) comprising M columns of N storage elements, and transfer circuitry to transfer data along the M columns of storage from an input storage element connected to a respective one of the M pixels along column of N storage elements to an output storage element at a transfer frequency Ft, each row of M storage elements storing data captured at the same time; and a readout section (3) arranged to read out data from the output end of the M columns of the storage region at a readout frequency Fr. In this way the readout frequency and transfer frequency may be separately controlled. An amplifier (4) may be connected to the readout section. An optical shield (5) may shield the storage elements leaving the photosensitive image region unshielded. The elements may be elements of a charge coupled array.