STMicroelectronics has unveiled a brand new multi-zone time-of-flight (ToF) distance sensor, the VL53L8CX, which it claims gives enhancements over its predecessors in brightly-lit environments and energy effectivity.
STMicro launched its first multi-zone ToF sensor, which detects the gap between the sensor and a number of objects by firing out laser gentle and timing how lengthy it takes for the sunshine to bounce again, in 2021. Its newest mannequin, the FlightSense VL53L8CX, comes with a spread of enhancements over its predecessors — together with a dramatically boosted vary below daylight circumstances, which has beforehand restricted efficiency by washing out the laser gentle and blinding the sensor.
STMicro’s new VL53L8CX time-of-flight sensor boasts dramatically higher efficiency in daylight, the corporate says. (📷: STMicroelectronics)
The brand new mannequin, STMicro says, can ship a 285cm (round 112″) vary in full daylight — up from 170cm (round 67″) for the last-generation VL53L5CX. Whereas nonetheless down from the sensor’s 400cm (round 157″) most vary in preferrred lighting circumstances, it is a huge increase — and one the corporate has achieved with out growing the sensor’s energy draw, which is down from 4.5mW within the last-generation mannequin to 1.6mW for its lowest operational energy mode.
The sensor delivers an 8×8 sensing grid, providing 64 areas, throughout a forty five×45° subject of view and with a 60Hz body fee, the corporate says. Its sensitivity and precision is sufficient, STMicro says, for use on the coronary heart of a gesture-based human-machine interplay system, and may be mixed with the corporate’s STM32 AI fashions for hand posture recognition.
The sensor emits a sq. laser grid with 64 particular person measurement zones, out to a 157″ vary below preferrred circumstances. (📷: STMicroelectronics)
The system can also be claimed to supply excessive accuracy for the measurement of container contents, together with for liquid-level monitoring, for autonomous robotics, digicam autofocus methods, and contains SPI connectivity in addition to the I2C out there on earlier fashions.
The VL53L8CX is now out there to order via STMicro’s website, with pricing beginning $8.91 in single-unit portions and dropping to $3.60 per unit for 1,000-unit trays.