Patent ID: 8610880

Claim:
A distance measuring apparatus comprising: a light source section that emits light in a pulsed manner in synchronization with a trigger signal; a light splitting section that branches the light from the light source section into first reference light, second reference light, and transmitted measurement light; a first reference light path that transmits the first reference light and that causes no variations in optical distance; a second reference light path that includes an optical delay generating section which generates a temporal delay with respect to the first reference light path and that transmits the second reference light; a reference light path switching section that has a function of allowing transmission through either one of the first reference light path or the second reference light path and blocking transmission through the other one of the first reference light path or the second reference light path, allowing transmission through both the first and second reference light paths, and blocking transmission through both the first and second reference light paths; a transmitting section that radiates the transmitted measurement light to an object to be measured; a receiving section that receives the radiated light reflected by the object to be measured as received measurement light; a measurement light amount adjusting section that blocks the transmitted measurement light or the received measurement light; a light synthesizing section that synthesizes output light from the first reference light path, output light from the second reference light path, and the received measurement light received by the receiving section; a photo-electric converting section that converts a light signal synthesized by the light synthesizing section into an electric signal; and a measurement control section having a function of controlling the reference light path switching section and the measurement light amount adjusting section to determine a distance on the basis of a time at which a signal obtained through the photo-electric converting section is detected.