STMicroelectronics announces 8x8 zone ranging time-of-flight sensor

     STMicroelectronics announces the Universal Multi-Zone Ranging FlightSense time-of-flight Sensor, bringing precision ranging solutions to a wide range of consumer electronics and industrial products.

     The VL53L5CX sensor provides up to 64 ranging zones with a maximum measurement distance of 4 meters per zone for multi-target detection applications, as well as a wide rectangular field of view with a diagonal field of view of 63°. The new sensor is suitable for gesture recognition, complex scene analysis (3D scanning of the robot in the room), tank level monitoring to improve inventory management efficiency, level monitoring, and smart bin overflow monitoring to improve collection efficiency.

     In public devices such as self-service payment terminals and consumer electronics as well as household appliances, by supporting gesture recognition and automatic human presence detection, VL53L5CX can achieve contactless safe wake-up systems and help devices save significant power. Using ST's market-proven histogram processing technology, the new sensor significantly reduces the impact of cover plate crosstalk and can be easily integrated and hidden behind a variety of panels. The new motion-indicating innovation also allows sensors to detect if a target has moved.

     The number of sensor arrays can be set, and in 16-zone (4x4) mode, the sensor ranging speed is up to 60 frames per second, enabling fast ranging mode. With a simple software configuration to achieve 8x8 area high resolution, the VL53L5CX also helps correct video projector ladder distortion and provides accurate miniature depth mapping solutions for augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications.

     VL53L5CX integrated low power microcontroller, capable of intelligent ranging, saving power, integrated in 6.4mm x 3.0mm x 1.5mm module all components required for ranging, including VCSEL(vertical cavity surface emitting laser) infrared transmitter and receiver, The receiver has a built-in SPAD(single photon avalanche diode) and a histogram-based ToF processing engine.

     There are a number of development toolchains that support VL53L5CX on the market, developers can quickly develop prototypes with useful evaluation and calibration tools, and you can also buy development boards that easily integrate VL53L5CX into larger prototype systems. In addition, the P-NUCLEO-53L5A1 evaluation kit and the X-Cub-TOF1 software extension pack enable developers to develop time-of-flight applications using the STM32 ecosystem.