PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16149023
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-10
Publication Date: 2019-02
Patent Classification: ["348", "043000"]

Abstract:
Using the same image sensor to capture a two-dimensional (2D) image and three-dimensional (3D) depth measurements for a 3D object. A laser point-scans the surface of the object with light spots, which are detected by a pixel array in the image sensor to generate the 3D depth profile of the object using triangulation. Each row of pixels in the pixel array forms an epipolar line of the corresponding laser scan line. Timestamping provides a correspondence between the pixel location of a captured light spot and the respective scan angle of the laser to remove any ambiguity in triangulation. An Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) in the image sensor operates as a Time-to-Digital (TDC) converter to generate timestamps. A timestamp calibration circuit is provided on-board to record the propagation delay of each column of pixels in the pixel array and to provide necessary corrections to the timestamp values generated during 3D depth measurements.

Claim (Index 15):
An image sensor unit, comprising:\n a pixel array forming an image plane, the pixel array including at least one row of pixels that forms at least a portion of an epipolar line of a scanning line, the scanning comprising a sequence of light spots projected toward a surface of an object by a light source, each pixel in the at least one row of pixels being associated with a corresponding column in the pixel array, and each pixel in the at least one row of pixels generating a pixel-specific output in response to detecting a light spot in the sequence of light spots that has been reflected from the surface of the object; a plurality of analog-to-digital Converter (ADC) units, each ADC unit being associated with a corresponding pixel in the at least one row of pixels and generating a pixel-specific timestamp value for the pixel-specific output of the corresponding pixel; and a calibration unit coupled to the plurality of ADC units, the calibration unit comprising a plurality of calibration pixels, each calibration pixel corresponding to a column of the at least one row of pixels and generating a calibration output for the corresponding column.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 11.0
- Percentile: 97.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.875
- Patent Class: 348.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14973709', '14989716', '14842822', '15225816', '14842825']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6282778957328874
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5478705948117516
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6202371656407738
- Mean Citation Score: 340.217974
- Max Citation Score: 394.67285
- Similarity Product: 362.4385828809381

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test