Fast and Energy-Efficient Time-of-Flight Distance Sensing Method for 3D Object Tracking

Abstract

We present a new energy-efficient distance sensing method for 3D object tracking with Time-of-Flight sensors. The field of 3D object tracking with 3D cameras recently gained momentum due to the advent of front-facing depth cameras in smartphones. Tracking the user's head with 3D cameras will enable novel user experiences, but can lead to power consumption issues due to the active illumination. State-of-the-art continuous-wave Time-of-Flight imaging requires at least four different phase-images, while our approach can produce 3D measurements from single phase-images. This reduces the amount of emitted light to a minimum, improves latency and enables higher framerates. As our evaluation shows, after a brief initialization phase, our method can reduce the power consumption of a Time-of-Flight system by up to 68%.