Design of 3D TOF camera system based on CW modulation technique

A 3D imaging camera without moving parts, working with Time-Of-Flight (TOF) principle is introduced. This ranging system operates with near-infrared light emitted by active modulation light source, which is detected and demodulated by a low-cost CMOS array of pixels. Compared with other types of depth sensors, TOF camera sensor measures the amplitude, offset and phase of the received signal simultaneously. This paper shows the hardware and software design of 3D camera, where the depth distance is obtained by using four-phase-shift algorithm and 3D point cloud is reconstructed with the camera calibration and the principle of pinhole imaging.