Patent ID: 8243288

Claim:
An object detection system comprising: light radiation means for radiating light of a two-dimensional pattern to an object; light sweeping means for carrying out a sweeping operation by continuously changing the radiation direction of said light of a two-dimensional pattern within a space determined in advance; light reflection means attached to a predetermined location on said object to serve as a detection subject and used for reflecting said light of a two-dimensional pattern in a direction opposite to said radiation direction of said light of a two-dimensional pattern; reflected-light detection means for detecting said light reflected by said light reflection means to appear as light arriving at said reflected-light detection means; and reflected-light analysis means for computing vertical-direction and horizontal-direction angles on the basis of a signal representing said reflected light detected by said reflected-light detection means, wherein, said two-dimensional pattern is configured to include code series generated by using two-dimensional M-sequence random numbers indicating the nonexistence and existence of a square pattern, said reflected-light analysis means computes: one of said vertical-direction and horizontal-direction angles of said light reflection means by identifying said code series, and the other vertical-direction and horizontal-direction angle of said light reflection means by detecting a phase shift of said identified code series.