Patent ID: 8488110

Claim:
A sensor for the measurement of distances or of distance changes in accordance with the signal transit time principle having, comprising: a transmitter for the transmission of an electromagnetic signal; a transmission controller by means of which the signals can be transmitted by the transmitter at presettable transmission times; a receiver for the reception of the signal remitted in a monitored zone; and an evaluation unit of the sensor configured to: trigger the transmission of a plurality of individual signals at respective transmission times in a plurality of respective measurement periods and to sample a respective plurality of received signals, accumulate a histogram of the plurality of received signals over the plurality of measurement periods to determine the reception time from the histogram and the transit time from said reception time, wherein the reception time is determined by an interpolation of the histogram, and preset the presettable transmission times over the plurality of measurement periods in accordance with a distribution such that the time position of the reception time varies within the histogram over the plurality of measurement periods.