US 11,789,148 B2
Electro-optical distance meter and distance measuring method
Reto Stutz, Berneck (CH); Jürg Hinderling, Marbach (CH); and Andreas Walser, St. Gallen (CH)
Assigned to HEXAGON TECHNOLOGY CENTER GMBH, Heerbrugg (CH)
Filed by HEXAGON TECHNOLOGY CENTER GMBH, Heerbrugg (CH)
Filed on Nov. 21, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/691,444.
Claims priority of application No. 18207757 (EP), filed on Nov. 22, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2020/0166643 A1, May 28, 2020
Int. Cl. G01S 17/10 (2020.01); G01S 17/36 (2006.01); G01S 17/88 (2006.01); G01S 7/4861 (2020.01); G01S 7/4865 (2020.01)
CPC G01S 17/10 (2013.01) [G01S 7/4861 (2013.01); G01S 7/4865 (2013.01); G01S 17/36 (2013.01); G01S 17/88 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An electro-optical distance meter comprising:
a radiation source for generating pulsed radiation at a pulse rate;
an objective and a photosensitive component for receiving a fraction of the pulses reflected from a target object and converting it into a reception signal;
an analog-to-digital converter for generating a digitized pulse by means of sampling of the reception signal at a sampling rate; and
an electronic analysis unit, which determines a distance between distance meter and target object on the basis of a measurement of time between emission and reception of an optical pulse by means of the digitized pulse,
wherein the distance meter comprises a sampling functionality, upon the execution of which the sampling rate is set in dependence on the pulse rate and the sampling for generating the digitized pulse is performed over the reception signals of a plurality of received radiation pulses, and
wherein the distance meter comprises at least one independent clock generator for generating an independent clock rate, wherein upon execution of the sampling functionality, the sampling rate and the pulse rate are set on the basis of the clock rate, or such that the absolute frequency of the radiation is progressively determinable on the basis of the clock rate, and the distance meter is designed to continuously compute a sampling-to-distance factor so that the distance determination is enabled with a scale error less than 10 ppm.