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Storing Data with Light

Currently, we have several methods of storing and transmitting data. The most common method followed is storing data on a magnetic hard disk in the form of bits. Here minute magnetic domains form a North and a South pole pair, with the direction of the magnetization of the poles defining whether the stored bit is a digital 1 or a 0. Writing the data means physically switching the magnetization of the relevant bit, one at a time.

Switching or changing the magnetization of each bit requires the application of an external magnetic field, which forces the alignment of the poles to change to either up or down for representing a digital 1 or a 0 respectively.

However, it is also possible to use light to flip the magnetization. Two things are required here, one, very short laser pulses of femtosecond wavelength, and the second, synthetic ferrimagnets that respond to these laser bursts. Using laser and ferrimagnetic material makes data storage far faster compared to what can be achieved by magnetization alone. Ferrimagnets are materials that work with spintronics with the application of a femtosecond laser pulse, and that makes the whole process extremely fast and energy-efficient.

As such, light offers the most energy-efficient method of sending and receiving information. However, storing light is not an easy task. That is the reason data centers all over the world prefer to use magnetic storage methods such as tapes and disks, even though these methods consume a lot of energy to operate. This hybrid technique of storing information using lasers and electric current, developed by researchers at TU Eindhoven at the Institute of Photonic Integration, was presented in the journal Nature Communications. The new method combines the advantages of the high speed of light and ease of magnetic storage. They are using ultra-short pulses of light to write the information directly on a magnetic medium, the result is highly energy efficient and the speed of operation matches the speed of light.

Scientists using the above method of data storage with lasers, have another trick up their sleeve. They combined this optical switching with race-track memory. Here, the data is stored inside a magnetic wire and transported using an electric current. Now, as soon as the bit is stored at one end of the wire using the laser burst, it can be efficiently transported along by the current, freeing up space and thereby allowing the laser to write the next bit.

This efficient on-the-fly operation with the help of lasers and current using magnetic race-tracks does not require any intermediate electronic step. In fact, the physical analogy the scientists offer for this method is of a person jumping back and forth between two high-speed trains moving alongside each other, instead of using a station to change over from one train to the other. The laser and current method, therefore, represents faster speed and higher efficiency.

Obviously, the wires are actually micro-wires. The scientists who designed the system plan to reduce the wires to nano-scale in the future to enable them to be integrated inside chips. They are also working on reading information using optical methods.

Contactless Magnetic Angle Sensing

Contactless magnetic angle position sensors are now giving optical encoders a run for their money. This was recently demonstrated by Monolithic Power Systems at Electronica 2018. They had on display a unique non-automotive-focused electric vehicle, mCar, with motion control and angular sensors. According to MPS, their mCar demos two main functions—motor control elements, and angular position sensors.

As Quitugua-Flores, the mechanical engineer and primary designer of the mCar at MPS explains, the steering of the car is a complete drive-by-wire concept, and there is no mechanical connection between the tires and the steering wheel. A magnetic angle sensor detects the angle of the steering wheel and converts the signal to control the tire angle necessary for the various steering modes. The magnetic angle sensor provides visible feedback via a blue LED mounted on the dashboard, with the LED lighting up when the driver turns the steering.

An electronic system takes in the magnetic angle sensor information and feeds it wirelessly to the rest of the car, thereby instructing the wheels to turn. The angular sensor, along with the board and antenna for sending the wireless signals is attached to the steering column.

The throttle and brake pedals use similar rotary magnetic angle sensors and send their signals wirelessly just as the sensor on the steering wheel does. Pivots on the brake and acceleration pedals house the angular sensors, and they measure the angle of depression of the pedals.

However, MPS has made the mCar as an R&D application, and they have not yet approached the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for compliance with their safety regulations.

According to Quitugua-Flores, another aspect of the mCar is its driver seat pivots freely. The front and rear suspension modules keep the seat suspended such that when the mCar enters a curve, the seat tilts into the turn just as it happens in a motorcycle or a plane. This keeps the driver firmly in the seat in a turn, rather than being literally pushed out of it.

An angle sensor attached to the seat detects the rotational position and sends the information to the suspension control. The shock absorbers in the mCar come with individual integrated BLDC motors that can change the length of the shock absorbers independently. Therefore, the suspension has complete control over camber or the vertical tilting of each wheel. As the frame of the mCar tilts when turning, the suspension changes such that each tire tilts in a corresponding direction—just as a four-wheeled motorcycle does.

Shafts suspending the driver cockpit also have angular sensors attached to them. This allows the driver to enjoy a smooth ride by controlling the behavior of the suspension.

According to MPS, the mCar is only a demonstration for the effective operation of a sensing and motion control for a demo Electric Vehicle but is not a high-precision application. For systems requiring high-precision applications, MPS has demonstrated a robotic arm that allows seven degrees of freedom.

With sixteen angular sensors inside it, the arm demonstrates the capabilities of the current generation of MPS angular sensors for precision applications.

Metamaterials Improve LIDAR

Light Detection and Ranging or LIDAR is a remote sensing method. The technique uses the time of flight of pulsed laser light to measure variable distances. Airborne systems record additional data, which, when combined with the data from the light pulses are able to generate three-dimensional information about the neighboring environment that offer precise surface characteristics.

In general, a LIDAR comprises a laser, a scanner, and a specialized receiver for Global Positioning System or GPS. Although so far, common platforms for LIDAR used helicopters and airplanes for acquiring data over broad areas, autonomous vehicles are now using Topographic LIDAR extensively for navigation through road traffic using a near-infrared laser to map the nearby area.

Using LIDAR systems help scientists and engineering professionals examine both artificial and natural environments with precision, accuracy, and flexibility. As the market for LIDAR is still in its nascent state and its technologies fragmented, there are only about 70 LIDAR companies worldwide, making it a hotbed of new technology.

For scanning a wide area, conventional LIDAR systems have to rely on electro-mechanical spinners to steer laser light beams. Not only does this method reduce the scan speed, but it also affects measurement accuracy. A Seattle-based, venture-backed startup, Lumotive, is now developing a new technology that will change the way LIDAR systems function.

According to Bill Colleran, co-founder, and CEO of Lumotive, they are developing a LIDAR system that can steer beams but has no moving parts. Rather, their patented technology uses the light-bending properties of metamaterials such as Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces or LCM to steer the laser beams. Bill calls the use of such metamaterials “pivotal technology.”

However, Lumotive is not the only player in the field to offer LIDAR systems that do not rely on mechanical scanning. Other rivals have used optical phased arrays or MEMS mirrors to claim their LIDARs use a lower number or no mechanical components.

According to Bill, Lumotive LIDAR systems use LCM semiconductor chips. The main advantages of LCM are it offers a large optical aperture of about 25 x 25 mm, resulting in a longer range for the LIDAR, along with a 120-degree field of view. The high performance of the LCM comes from its fast-random-access beam steering capability.

When a laser beam shines onto the Lumotive’s liquid crystal metasurface chip, programmed electrical signals can direct the reflected light into any direction within its 120-degree field of view.

Metamaterials are mostly artificially structured materials that allow unprecedented control over their properties, specifically in new ways for controlling the flow of electromagnetic radiation including light. For instance, Kymeta has a flat-panel satellite antenna technology based on metamaterials.

Kymeta’s antenna can move electronically. It does not require the conventional phase shifters, amplifiers, and related components on its surface. This not only cuts down the cost, it also consumes far less power and does not require cooling devices. Compared to conventional antenna systems, Kymeta is able to increase the density of their flat-panel antenna elements dramatically, while controlling the phase and amplitude simply by activating or deactivating individual antenna elements. Lumotive have adapted the Kymeta antenna’s metamaterial architecture to their LIDAR system.

Role of LEDs in Horticulture

While LEDs have revolutionized indoor and exterior lighting methods, they have been revolutionizing operations involving indoor grow facilities. This is mainly because LEDs are highly flexible in their spectral output, while their efficiency is very high. That means they emit much lower heat.

A new standard from ASABE specifies the performance of LED lighting products for horticulture applications. The standard spells out the test methods to measure the optical radiation from LEDs in the range 280-800 nm. Note the visible spectrum covers about 390-700 nm.

According to the Standards and Technical director of ASABE, Scott Cedarquist, in horticultural applications, LED lighting has generated very high levels of interest in their projects in the last 20 years. Therefore, horticultural lighting makes use of several terminologies that are primarily focused on plants. Two of them are PPFD or Photosynthetic Photon Flus Density and PPF or Photosynthetic Photon Flux.

While PPFD measures the number of active photons falling on a surface per unit area per unit of time, PPF is the number of photons created by a lighting system per second.

Horticultural lighting primarily focuses on delivering photons that initiate photosynthesis and other processes in plants. These spur plant development as they excite electrons. Horticultural applications use LED products that are different from those used for general illumination. The difference is primarily that the former has a wider spectral output typical for horticultural applications. This is necessary as different plants respond differently to various wavelengths.

According to academic and industry research, each type of plant has a specific light recipe that helps the plant to yield higher growth in the shortest period. The recipe holds the variation in optical spectra for optimizing the overall growth of the plant, thereby improving desirable plant characteristics. For instance, increasing the potency of cannabis or the flavor of vegetables.

The light output from LEDs has another characteristic. Not only do LEDs provide a precise output spectrum, but this spectrum can also be tuned to optimize the spectrum for different plants and the phases of their life.

LED lighting products are primarily used in horticulture as vertical farms. This is due to the far lower heat output from LEDs as compared to that from other light sources. This allows the LEDs to be interspersed very close to the plants without damaging them. Therefore, facility managers are able to maximize the use of available space. This has made vertical farming very popular in urban areas. Horticulturists are making use of abandoned buildings which they are converting to grow food, thereby making new products available at cheaper rates.

The high efficiency of LEDs also helps considerably in energy savings. However, grow facility managers are more interested in the yield of the crop, and use of LEDs for high-value crops such as cannabis offer revenue increase from higher yield and shorter life cycle, rather than from energy savings. Similarly, more traditional crops such as flowers and leafy vegetables also use LED lighting not for energy savings, but rather for the ability to produce more crops in a shorter period.

Automation Applications of Thermopile Arrays

For a temperature difference occurring between two ends of a thermocouple, it develops an electrical voltage difference. A series of such thermocouples form a thermopile sensor, with each element being a thin wire made from two materials differing in the thermal activity. All the hot junctions of the thermocouples are placed on a thin common absorbing area that forms the sensor face, while the cold junctions are placed on a heat sink with a high thermal mass.

As an instrument, the thermopile sensor can remotely measure the temperature of objects and people. The operation of the thermopile is better understood in terms of heat flow rather than temperature rise. Any object with a temperature higher than the ambient is actually sending out heat in specific spectral characteristics and density. According to primary thermodynamics, heat flows from an object at a higher temperature to another at a lower temperature, causing a change in energy levels of both the objects in the process.

The amount of heat absorbed depends on the field of view and surface area the Thermopile sensor presents to the heat source. Heat reaching the thermocouples inside flows through the membrane structure of the thermopile, finally reaching the heat sink or the housing bottom. This heat flow causes a difference of temperature on the ends of the thermocouples located on the absorber and those on the heat sink, ultimately resulting in a voltage difference between the ends of the thermopile sensor.

Compared to the traditional contact-based temperature sensors, thermopile temperature sensors are of the non-contact type, and hence, they are more popular industrially. Rather than use conduction for heat transfer, thermopile temperature sensors use infrared radiation, allowing better reliability and performance in several constrained applications.

The voltage difference on the ends of the thermopile sensor is analyzed by a Thermopile sensor IC, which provides temperature readout in a convenient digital format. Continuous improvements in this field are resulting in devices that consume reduced power, are smaller and more affordable. This translates into more application opportunities for thermopile temperature sensors in home appliances, office equipment, medical instruments, and consumer devices.

Thermopiles with single-element infrared sensors are popular in the low-end market, as they are good for detecting the presence of stationary warm bodies in a room. However, these simple sensors are unable to provide the direction of movement of a moving object in their field of view. For this additional functionality, engineers use thermopile arrays.

Rather than use a single sensing element as in a thermopile temperature sensor, thermopile arrays use multiple IR sensing elements working together. Integrated signal processing capabilities and coordinated sensing elements of the modern thermopile arrays allow the devices to measure not only absolute temperatures but also temperature gradients. This allows thermopile arrays to sense the direction of movement of the heat source, such as up, down, left, right, and diagonally. Thermopile arrays can detect the presence of multiple objects or people even as they move about in different directions. This allows them to sense the proximity of the heat source and handle control tasks with simple gestures.

Thermopile Sensors for IoT

mart and connected technologies are presently driving the astonishing growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, growth in these technologies is, in turn, a result of the tremendous development of various sensors. According to the Boston Consulting Group, by 2020, expect to spend US$ 265 billion for IoT technologies, services, and products. Much of this growth will owe its progress to that of sensors.

One can now find sensors almost everywhere, for instance, in smart retail, smart healthcare, and smart homes. Today, most people start their day with pressing a couple of apps while still in bed, thereby turning on the high-end coffee maker for the first-morning cup, or their night adjusting the climate control zoning system for keeping the bedroom in that ideal sleeping temperature.

As an example, a large health insurer in Australia is placing sensors throughout the house of elderly members for monitoring their health and preventing them from falling. They place sensors within refrigerators, medicine cabinets, bathrooms, and doorways. The sensors monitor movement by tracking the temperature within the home. Any break in routing such as a change in the temperature notifies the family immediately.

Viewers of professional golfing can see information on the heart rates of the players on their TV screens thanks to a special camera and sensors monitoring the faces of the players. This contactless vital sensing technique allows TV viewers to read the stress levels of the athletes as they play.

The past decade has seen a drastic drop in the prices of sensors as a result of the advancement of technology. This reduction has exponentially increased the use of sensors not only in civilian applications, but also in military, aerospace, and in collision avoidance systems in the automotive industry.

Advances in complex micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and thermopiles are improving uncooled IR sensor technology. This MEMS-based technology offers free-standing thermal isolation structures surrounding a printed thin-film IR absorber. This allows the collection of radiated power to determine the temperature of a remote object. Using semiconductor technology, it is now possible to add hundreds on thermocouples on several square millimeters of a thermopile sensor. Besides being small and reasonably priced, these thermopile array sensors are smart enough to be accurate with faster response time. It makes them ideal for building automation, people counting, security systems, medical instruments, and more.

For instance, the 8×8 thermopile array device is a sensor with 64-pixel IR sensors fitting within a surface mount package that can withstand reflow soldering. Apart from a silicon lens that collects the infrared energy, the package consists of a digital ASIC, a MEMS detector chip, and RF-shielded metal cover, and an I2C interface.

While operating, the thermopile array sensor has a 60-degree field of view for absorbing emitted thermal energy. The 64 sensing elements in the array individually convert the absorbed thermal energy to produce a proportional output signal. After amplification, an ADC converts these analog temperature signals to digital, while also referencing them against the ambient temperature value measured by a thermistor. A microprocessor collects the digital data and proceeds to map the temperature from individual thermopile elements into a thermal representation of the entire field of view.

Why you need Sensor as well as PLC Data

In the Industry, collection of IoT data, specifically that from manufacturing processes is very important. Apart from the quantity of the data collected, the quality of information from various machines is also equally vital for analysis, and to make decisions.

IIoT puts a lot of stress on the usefulness of predictive analytics based on big data. According to the Forbes magazine, big data offers the volume, speed, and variety of information about important effects that traditional methods of empirical research and the human eye is unable to capture. Therefore, big data becomes the primary step towards generating valuable insights from evidence-based interventions. From a theoretical and practical perspective, big data not only helps to predict outcomes, but it also helps in explaining them, especially in understanding the underlying causes.

Companies usually build plug-n-play adapters for controls, thereby enabling them to capture hundreds of data points directly from PLCs. Although this generates vast quantities of data for analysis, and a large part of it will be helpful as deep data, there will always be some part of the data that will remain useless, as will some results.

By taking the analysis down to a more granular level, deep data can eliminate irrelevant information and focus on the streams for a certain course of investigation. Analyzing deep data offers more accurate overall predictive trends.

Data from a specific sensor on a machine offers a snapshot within a designated timeframe. Sensor data monitors specific situations, such as vibrations that signify to an operator the state of operation of the machine—on versus off. However, all sensor data may or may not be useful during a review or analysis.

On the other hand, PLCs can collect large amounts of data, and when combined with sensor data, allows the operator to gather a full picture of the machine status at any time. This data can help to monitor inputs to and outputs from a machine, and based on programming, can make logical decisions when necessary.

Older machines with legacy controls and those with no controls need additional integration/hardware support for capturing data. While auxiliary hardware can capture digital and analog IO, adding sensors can generate additional data points.

The ability to capture deep PLC data and data from sensors that monitor specific items that the PLC cannot reach forms the basis of high-quality analytics and results—all the more reasons for the necessity of sensor as well as PLC data.

For instance, while a sensor may provide information on the vibration limits of a certain machine or parts thereof, the PLC data from the machine may include parameters signaling an impending fault. Therefore, the PLC data offers the ability to control the operation of or sequence of activity of a nearby a machine. When the sensor data signals one or more parameters are beyond the programmed limits, the operator can respond quickly, and need not wait for analysis.

Therefore, using both sets of data from sensors as well as from PLCs offers more information to the user than either on their own do. This allows the operator greater flexibility for avoiding expensive downtimes and maintenance issues.

What are Diode Array Detectors?

High Performance Liquid Chromatography or HPLC uses diode arrays for recording the absorption spectrum of samples when ultraviolet and visible light passes through them. This enables the user to gather qualitative information about the samples. Major applications of HPLC diode array detectors include agriculture, environment, and industries such as petrochemical, energy, chemistry, life sciences, and pharmaceuticals.

Diode array detectors of HPLC have the advantage of the ability to select the best wavelength for analysis. Therefore, when selecting a diode array for use as a detector in HPLC, one should consider features such as resolution, wavelength range, near infrared ranges, baseline stability, low noise, and peak integration. Some vendors also offer the technique of detecting using a configurable light path formed from fiber optics.

An HPLC has a tungsten lamp emitting light in the visible range. This light enters a deuterium lamp that adds the UV to the visible light, forming a polychromatic beam. As this beam passes through a flow-cell, the sample in the flow-cell absorbs certain wavelengths. The output light then enters a grating, which splits the polychromatic beam into its constituent wavelengths and these pass through a slit before falling on an array of photodiodes, which measure their intensities.

As the diode array detectors measure all wavelengths simultaneously, it is able to acquire the spectra as well as the multiple single wavelengths at the same time by the different diodes in the array. The diode array detector has high selectivity, as it can identify different substances by their spectra.

One of the major advantages of the diode array detector is the tungsten lamp offering light in the extended visible wavelength. Additionally, by controlling the temperature of the optical unit of the diode array detector, its signal quality improves dramatically. Moreover, the diode array detector does not require a reference diode.

While other types of detectors use a diode for reference, for a diode array detector, there is no direct measurement of a signal when there is no absorption. Rather, the HPLC uses a detector balance. This happens automatically as the user switches the instrument on or just before conducting a measurement. The user achieves a detector balance by setting the absorption values for all wavelengths to zero. According to the Lambert Beer’s law, this allows the measurement of all intensities during an experiment to be made relative to this zero absorption intensity.

To cater to baseline changes or drift during a measurement, the diode array detector uses a reference wavelength. The user has to select a specific wavelength as reference, and make sure there is no absorption in the wavelength during the entire chromatography measurement. The user then uses the relative changes of the reference intensities for correcting the proportional changes occurring in other wavelengths.

Five factors majorly affect the measurements done by HPLCs using diode array detectors. These are the slit width, the bandwidth, the response time, and the flow cells. The user has to adjust all of them to obtain the best response from the diode array detector when testing the absorption of a sample. For instance, the slit defines the amount of light the detector measures. The bandwidth defines the window for the data acquisition. The response time defines the time resolution, and the flow cell defines the flow range.

What are Linear Image Sensors?

Fairchild Imaging makes CMOS 1421, a linear image sensor. This is an imaging device with a wide dynamic range of 94 dB or 52000:1, with excellent linearity. The device is a linear sensor, meaning it has 2048 x 1 high-resolution imaging sensors. Fairchild has designed this linear sensor for medical and scientific line scan applications such as optical inspection or fluorescent imaging that require wide dynamic range, high sensitivity, and low noise operation.

With several acquisition modes, this photodiode pixel has an optical area measuring 7 x 10 µm with a pitch of 7 µm and a fill factor of 85%, making the operation of this sensor very flexible:

  • Read after Integration: This mode is ideal for applications with high quality signals
  • Buffered Read after Integration: is a high speed mode that integrates the next line while reading the current line
  • Read on Integration: This is a non-CDS mode, allowing the highest speed of operation
  • Multiple Read during Integration: This mode is for low-light applications, permitting oversampling during integration

Other than the above, a programmed mode, accessible through JTAG interface, meets a wide range of specialized imaging requirements. Readout cycles in this mode are controllable through external signals.

CMOS 1421 has several features such as very low dark current, very low readout noise, and non-destructive readout for fowler sampling. Along with anti-blooming drain and electronic shutter, the CMOS 1421 also features two independent gain settings for each pixel. The entire device is enclosed in an RoHS compliant CLCC and PLCC package of 22.35 x 6.35 x 2.85 mm dimensions. The device consumes 40 mW of power while operating from 3.3 VDC. Major applications of linear image sensors are in microscopy, photon counting, and fluorescent imaging.

CMOS 1421 has a pixel array consisting of a photodiode, a pixel amplifier, and a sample and hold circuit. Along with the above, each pixel has a noise suppression circuitry and a gain register. While the pixel-level gain affects the device sensitivity, it also has a bearing on the noise and conversion factor of the sensor.

Linear image sensors from Fairchild use thinned back-illuminated large area arrays. Fairchild offers custom capabilities such as extreme spectral band detection, low noise active reset CMOS architecture, and high-resolution X-ray imagery using these sensors.

These linear image sensors are ideal for visible, ultra violet to visible, and visible to near infrared spectrometers, and their enhancement makes them suitable for spectroscopy applications. The design of their pixels being tall and narrow helps light distribution from a spectrometer’s grating. If provided with UV sensitivity, these sensors do not need extra UV coating.

CMOS 1421 displays superior linearity, which is of extreme benefit to spectroscopy measurements. The device also includes an electronic shutter along with a built-in timing generator, which are useful in spectroscopy. The device is suitable for several applications involving scientific, industrial, and commercial activities.

New sensors based on CMOS match features with those of CCDs. Featuring simpler external circuit design, and simpler operation, CMOS 1421 linear image sensors are suitable for spectroscopy, displacement measurement, barcode scanning, and imaging.

What are 3-D Image Sensors?

3-D image sensors from Infineon are perfect for use in mobile consumer devices. These new REAL3 image sensors measure the time-of-flight of infrared signals, enabling sensing gestures the user makes in front of the screen. Infineon has designed the sensors with a perfect combination of power consumption, performance, functionality, cost, and size. The IRS238xC 3-D image sensors work in any kind of ambient light conditions and this makes them indispensable for reliable use in mobile applications.

The IRS238xC has high-performance pixel arrays that are highly sensitive to infrared light of 850 and 940 nm wavelength. This allows the device to perform unparalleled in any outdoor environment. Combined with this, Infineon has provided its patented SBI or suppression of background illumination circuitry in every pixel. The combination extends the nominal dynamic range of each pixel by nearly 20 times.

As the single-chip design has a high integration level, it allows the user to optimize the bill of material. Apart from this, it also reduces the design complexity and offers a small form factor. There are other advanced features as well, such as integrated high-performance ADCs, illumination control logic, a modulation unit with high flexibility, and circuitry for eye-safety that enables it to work as a laser-class-1 device. Interfacing is through a high-speed CSI-2 data interface.

The IRS238xC operates from an optimized in-built voltage supply unit, and it can self-boot as it has a full SPI master memory interface. Among the new features available on the sensor are, coded modulation and enhanced configuration flexibility. This allows the device to perform flexibly and robustly in multi-camera scenarios and similar use-cases.

The time of flight technology from Infineon works with stability, as high assembly yields prove, and this is a great boon for camera module manufacturers, as the IRS238xC not only simplifies calibration efforts, it also simplifies the camera module design. In short, IRS238xC combines the benefits of reliability, cost, size, functionality, and power consumption, making it indispensable for mobile 3-D sensing applications in all kinds of ambient light conditions.

For instance, the IRS238xC has the smallest module size giving 224 x 172 pixels, each of size 14 µm and with their own individual micro-lens. The suppression of background illumination or SBI provides each pixel with a 20-time gain in dynamic expansion against strong sunlight, but at minimum power consumption. The robust high-volume assembly of the device and its low calibration efforts offer an easy design and low system bill of materials for the designer.

IRS238xC offers time-of-flight technology for directly measuring the amplitude and depth of information in every pixel. It does this using a single modulated infrared light source that the chip emits to the whole scenery. The TOF imager captures the reflected light. The unit measures the phase difference between the emitted and the reflected light along with their amplitude values, thereby calculating the distance information and producing a grayscale picture of the entire scene all in one sweep.

Infineon provides algorithms that feature unique multiple benefits compared to other depth sensing technologies such as stereovision or structured light.