Investigation of the distance error induced by cycle-to-cycle jitter in a correlating time-of-flight distance measurement system

Johannes Seiter; Michael Hofbauer; Milos Davidovic; Horst Zimmermann

doi:10.1117/1.OE.53.7.073104

22 July 2014 Investigation of the distance error induced by cycle-to-cycle jitter in a correlating time-of-flight distance measurement system

Johannes Seiter, Michael Hofbauer, Milos Davidovic, Horst Zimmermann

Author Affiliations +

Optical Engineering, Vol. 53, Issue 7, 073104 (July 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.53.7.073104

Abstract

Time-of-flight (TOF) range sensors acquire distances by means of an optical signal delay measurement. As the signal travels at the speed of light, distance resolutions in the subcentimeters range require a time measurement resolution that is in the picoseconds range. However, typical clock synthesizers and digital buffers possess cycle-to-cycle jitter values of up to hundreds of picoseconds, which can potentially have a noticeable impact on the TOF system performances. In this publication, we investigate the influence of two common types of cycle-to-cycle jitter distributions on the measured distance. This includes a random Gaussian distribution, which is caused by, e.g., stochastic noise sources, and a discrete jitter distribution, which is found when timing constraints fail in synchronous digital designs. It was demonstrated that a Gaussian cycle-to-cycle jitter has only a negligible impact on the performance of the TOF distance sensors up to a standard deviation of 1 ns of the Gaussian jitter distribution. However, even the discrete cycle-to-cycle jitter investigated in its simplest form lowers the distance precision of the TOF sensor by a factor of 2.86, i.e., the standard deviation increases from 2.9 to 8.3 mm.

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Johannes Seiter, Michael Hofbauer, Milos Davidovic, and Horst Zimmermann "Investigation of the distance error induced by cycle-to-cycle jitter in a correlating time-of-flight distance measurement system," Optical Engineering 53(7), 073104 (22 July 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.53.7.073104

Published: 22 July 2014

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