Electronic – DIY laser range-finder

laserlaser-diodelight-sensorphotodiodephotosensor

I would like to develop a laser range-finder board similar to Extech DT300. I would like to achieve a centimeter precision at 20 meters.

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I don't know if devices such as DT300 use a "standard" time-of-flight approach (delta time between emission and reception) or a phase-shift time-of-flight approach (continuous emission, phase shift detection).

Question #1: Could ISL29501 achieve a similar precision? Datasheet is available here. The idea would be to use a laser emitter / receiver like here.

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Question #2: Should I use another chip to drive the laser emitter / receiver in a "standard" time-of-flight approach as described above?

Best Answer

Your desired 10mm precision might be a bit optimistic. Here is the typical performance of their eval board with a ~2m range. It's not obvious to me how this changes when you increase the range.

Presumably there is a hard limit of ~33m due to the modulation frequency, but that's within your desired range.

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