Patent ID: 7609365

Claim:
An electro-optical distance measuring method for measuring a distance to an object to be measured by receiving a reflected light from the object to be measured, comprising: a step of projecting a laser beam which consists of pulses sequentially emitted with a predetermined spreading angle so as to include two or more objects to be measured; a step of receiving the reflected lights from the two or more objects to be measured by a photodetection unit via the same optical path for each pulse of the pulsed laser beam; a step of discriminating and detecting the reflected light from one of said two or more objects to be measured; a step of discriminating and detecting the reflected lights from said two or more objects to be measured respectively; and a step of measuring distances to said two or more objects to be measured respectively based on the results of detection of the discriminated reflected lights; wherein, in the step of discriminating said reflected lights for each emitted pulse, the reflected light received first in one emitted pulse is detected, the detection is restricted on the detected reflected light after the reflected light is detected at least one time, and the reflected light received first after light emission except the restricted reflected light can be detected after restriction.