Patent ID: 7462808

Claim:
A method for characterizing a remote scene using temporally modulated electromagnetic radiation, comprising: (a) selecting at least two different phases of the modulated electromagnetic radiation, (b) emitting the electromagnetic radiation towards the scene, (c) transducing electromagnetic radiation reflected and/or scattered from the scene into an electric signal for each of the at least two different phases, (d) allocating a storage element from a plurality of storage elements to each of the at least two different phases, (e) storing each electric signal in the storage element allocated to the corresponding phase, (f) reading out the storage elements and storing intermediate output signals, (g) performing at least one further measurement cycle comprising the above steps (b)-(f) using the same at least two different phases, wherein each of the storage elements is allocated to a different one of the at least two different phases than in a previous measurement cycle, (h) merging the intermediate output signals from a first and further measurement cycles that correspond to the same phase of the at least two different phases, yielding one output signal per phase, and (i) evaluating characteristics of the scene from the output signals corresponding to the at least two different phases.