Patent ID: 8670289

Claim:
A distance sensor, comprising: an ultrasound transceiver for transmitting ultrasound pulses and for receiving reflected ultrasound pulses from an object; a discriminator unit for determining a center of distribution of the received reflected ultrasound pulses based on the received reflected ultrasound pulse exceeding a first threshold value and subsequently dropping below a second threshold value; and a propagation time analyzer device for determining, based on the determined center of distribution, the distance to the object; an estimator device for estimating a height of the object based on at least one of a pulse width of the reflected ultrasound pulses, a ratio of a number of reflected ultrasound pulses to a number of transmitted ultrasound pulses, and a distribution of the centers of distribution of reflected ultrasound pulses of an object; and a correction unit for correcting the distance determined from the propagation time analyzer device as a function of the estimated height.