Patent ID: 7140543

Claim:
An imaging device capable of detecting an image of a target object with reduced speckle-pattern noise, said imaging device comprising: at least one image detection array and image formation optics that provide a field of view corresponding to said at least one image detection array; at least one illumination module that produces planar light illumination that substantially overlaps the field of view corresponding to said image detection array, said at least one illumination module including at least one source of coherent illumination; and illumination control circuitry that modulates a power level of illumination produced by said source of coherent illumination during each photo-integration time period of said image detection array so that said target object is illuminated with a spatially coherent-reduced laser illumination and numerous substantially different time-varying speckle-noise patterns are produced at said image detection array over the photo-integration time period thereof; whereby said numerous substantially different time-varying speckle-noise patterns are detected at said image detection array over said photo-integration time period, and said detected speckle-noise patterns are temporally averaged at said image detection array during said photo-integration time period thereof, thereby reducing the power of speckle noise patterns at said at least one image detection array.