Patent ID: 8599303

Claim:
An optical dimensioning system with a field of view for measuring the dimensions of a reflective object positioned within said field of view, the system comprising: a pulsed light source; a beam shaping element for distributing power from said pulsed light source over said field of view; an optical sampler for sampling the output of said pulsed light source; an object positioning system; and a 3D camera including: a lens system for collecting pulsed light reflected from said object; a focal plane array having an array of light sensitive detectors, each detector producing an electrical pulse response signal from an incident pulsed light signal, each of said light sensitive detectors electrically connected by a metallic bump to a unit cell electrical circuit of a readout array, wherein said readout array has a clock connected to an array of unit cell electrical circuits; and wherein each unit cell electrical circuit includes: an input amplifier with an amplifier output connected to a plurality of switches, each switch connected to a memory capacitor; a logic element with a plurality of sequenced outputs, each of said sequenced outputs connected to a control input of one of said switches, each sequenced output of said logic element adapted to turn one of said switches on and off upon a transition of said clock thereby producing an analog sample of said electrical pulse response signal; a counter connected to said logic element for counting the number of said analog samples; a trigger circuit with an output connected to said logic element, to terminate the analog sampling; and a multiplexer having a plurality of inputs; wherein each of said inputs is connected to a memory capacitor; and wherein said multiplexer has an output connected to a global multiplexer residing on the periphery of said readout array; a supporting circuit board having a power supply connected to said focal plane array and applying power and bias voltages to said focal plane array.