Papers by Felix Lustenberger
Proceedings of SPIE, Feb 18, 2004
A new miniaturized camera system that is capable of 3-dimensional imaging in real-time is present... more A new miniaturized camera system that is capable of 3-dimensional imaging in real-time is presented. The compact imaging device is able to entirely capture its environment in all three spatial dimensions. It reliably and simultaneously delivers intensity data as well as range information on the objects and persons in the scene. The depth measurement is based on the time-of-flight (TOF) principle. A custom solid-state image sensor allows the parallel measurement of the phase, offset and amplitude of a radio frequency (RF) modulated light field that is emitted by the system and reflected back by the camera surroundings without requiring any mechanical scanning parts. In this paper, the theoretical background of the implemented TOF principle is presented, together with the technological requirements and detailed practical implementation issues of such a distance measuring system. Furthermore, the schematic overview of the complete 3D-camera system is provided. The experimental test results are presented and discussed. The present camera system can achieve sub-centimeter depth resolution for a wide range of operating conditions. A miniaturized version of such a 3D-solid-state camera, the SwissRanger TM 2, is presented as an example, illustrating the possibility of manufacturing compact, robust and cost effective ranging camera products for 3D imaging in real-time.
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Nov 1, 2006
A novel pixel architecture for two-dimensional pixel parallel demodulation of modulated light wav... more A novel pixel architecture for two-dimensional pixel parallel demodulation of modulated light waves is introduced, enabling real-time three-dimensional (3-D) imaging. Applications for such methods can be found in the field of surveillance, robotics, automotive, and industry security applications. The pixel architecture is based on large areas of static drift fields and relatively small demodulation regions. The large area of static drift field forms the basic photodetection region. The constant drift field enables the very fast transport of photo-generated charges to the sampling region where demodulation of the light signal is performed. The main advantages compared to recently used demodulation pixels are lower power consumption and higher optical fill factor or sensitivity. The first implementation is a pixel of 40 × 40 µm 2 size with 25% optical fill factor. Measurements prove the concept of transporting photo-generated charges within less than 1 ns to the demodulation node. The applicability of the pixel in 3-D imaging applications is highlighted by distance measurements achieving millimeter distance resolution.
I would also say 'thank you' to Max Dtinki, who keeps our Sun workstation cluster constantly runn... more I would also say 'thank you' to Max Dtinki, who keeps our Sun workstation cluster constantly running and up-to-date. With great pleasure I also acknowledge the assistance with the de¬ sign of printed circuit boards and measurement setup provided by the technical staff of the laboratory, in particular, Felix Frey, Patrick Schweizer, and Thomas Schärer. Whenever there were problems that we were not able to solve at the laboratory, I always found kind persons whithin the depart¬ ment of electrical engineering willing to help me. The follow¬ ing persons (in alphabetical order) provided me with practical solutions to many problems:
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2015
MAINTAINING and fostering organizational interfaces can be a Sisyphean task and already be more t... more MAINTAINING and fostering organizational interfaces can be a Sisyphean task and already be more than challenging under normal circumstances. However, creating new relationships from their inception, as in case of the acquisition of another company, meeting the task requirements sometimes appears close to impossibility.
Proceedings of SPIE, Apr 25, 2008
ABSTRACT CMOS image sensors (CIS) are becoming ubiquitous these days, but they still lack some fu... more ABSTRACT CMOS image sensors (CIS) are becoming ubiquitous these days, but they still lack some fundamental ingredients of high-sensitivity imaging: low dark current, high quantum efficiency and high optical fill factor combined with CMOS signal-processing capabilities. Although these limitations are a nuisance in consumer products, they present fundamental limitations in industrial sensors and scientific instrumentation. It has been concluded from previous attempts to fundamentally change the behavior of CIS technologies that there is a need to drastically change the way of producing CMOS imagers. Espros Photonics Corp. has been founded in early 2007 to realize some of these concepts in order to provide a European technology platform in CMOS-integrated photonics. We will present the fundamental concepts together with specific examples as well as the potentials for users of this technology platform whose inherent goal is to reach the single-photon detection limit in CMOS image sensing.
Proceedings of SPIE, Feb 16, 2005
In recent years, pervasive computing has become an important topic in automobile industry. Beside... more In recent years, pervasive computing has become an important topic in automobile industry. Besides well-known driving assistant systems such as ABS, ASR and ESP several small tools that support driving activities were developed. The most important reason for integrating ...
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2016
Proceedings of SPIE, Jan 17, 2005
Surface orientation imager with excluding capability of non-Lambertian reflectance p. 9 Photogram... more Surface orientation imager with excluding capability of non-Lambertian reflectance p. 9 Photogrammetry for geological applications : automatic retrieval of discontinuity orientation in rock slopes p. 17
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I-regular Papers, Oct 1, 2007
In optical time-of-flight (TOF) range imaging, harmonic intensity modulation of the illumination ... more In optical time-of-flight (TOF) range imaging, harmonic intensity modulation of the illumination source is very common. By detecting the phase delay between emitted and reflected sinusoids, the distance can be measured accurately. However, this harmonic approach does not allow for the concurrent operation of several TOF range cameras because the arbitrary superposition of several differently parametrized sinusoids leads to a sinusoid with incorrect phase. To minimize inaccuracies by multi-camera interference (MCI), pseudonoise (PN) modulated intensity signals are employed for robust TOF range imaging. The time of flight is locally measured by correlating the incident light intensity with two time-shifted versions of the PN sequence, making use of smart demodulation pixels. We derive two fundamental expressions for the basic limitations of TOF measurements using PN sequences. Firstly, the precision of the distance measurement is limited by photon shot noise, and it essentially shows an inverse square root dependence of the number of detected photoelectrons. Secondly, MCI causes an inaccurate distance measurement given as the ratio of two sums. The denominator is the sum of two autocorrelation and two cross-correlation values; the nominator is the sum of one autocorrelation and one cross-correlation value. Due to the lack of a strict mathematical theory of correlation properties of-sequences, an exhaustive numerical simulation was carried out to obtain expectation values of the distance measurement inaccuracy as a function of the sequence length and the number of interfering cameras. For experimental verification, an image sensor with 176 144 demodulation pixels was manufactured with a standard CMOS process offering a CCD option. Measurements taken with up to five concurrently operating sensors were in excellent agreement with our theoretical predictions concerning achievable distance accuracy. This confirms the aptness of PN techniques for multi-camera optical TOF range imaging.
European Solid-State Circuits Conference, 1999
An all-analog high-speed decoding technique is described which is suitable for magnetic recording... more An all-analog high-speed decoding technique is described which is suitable for magnetic recording (MR) and other computationally demanding applications. A decoder for a binary (18,9,5) tail-biting trellis code, which is much simpler than the codes used for MR, has been chosen to demonstrate this technique. It achieves a decoding rate of 100 Mbit/s at a single 5V power supply. The power consumption is 50 mW. Higher speed can essentially be traded for higher power consumption. A comparison shows that a digital implementation is outperformed by more than two orders of magnitude in terms of speed and/or power consumption.
IEEE Engineering Management Review, Dec 1, 2012
ABSTRACT In the last article on organizational interfaces we elaborated on the different types of... more ABSTRACT In the last article on organizational interfaces we elaborated on the different types of interfaces you face at your own organization. We have seen that it can be of internal or external nature. Furthermore, we have identified a variety of aspects that are completely independent of the nature of your organization and hence apply in an orthogonal manner. In this article we will now have a closer look at the intra-company aspects of organizational interfaces and will deduce some hints on how you can make your interaction within your organization effective but also enjoyable.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
Abstract. In the past, measuring the scene in all three dimensions has been either very expensive... more Abstract. In the past, measuring the scene in all three dimensions has been either very expensive, slow or extremely computationally intensive. The latest progresses in the field of microtechnologies enable the break-through for time-of-flight (TOF) based distance-measuring devices. This ...
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2015
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2014
ABSTRACT EVERY working person is inevitably embedded into an organizational structure. This is al... more ABSTRACT EVERY working person is inevitably embedded into an organizational structure. This is also true for the self-employed where the structure is very simple; a one-person operation. The situation definitely becomes more complex in organizations that employ you as an engineer, engineering manager, or as a chief executive officer. This article highlights some aspects of organizational hierarchies, ways to simplify interaction and collaboration within such structures, and provides advice on how to maintain flexibility even under a strict hierarchical regime.
IEEE Engineering Management Review, Mar 1, 2014
ABSTRACT IN my last article I promised to extend the investigation on the influence of group dyna... more ABSTRACT IN my last article I promised to extend the investigation on the influence of group dynamics on organizational interfaces and provide some hints on how to improve communication exchange within a team or even multiple teams of the same department, division or even an entire company. As you may have experienced yourself, during important meetings, some people may express their surprise over statements or decisions that have been previously made and claim to have never heard about it. This is a real nuisance as it could have been prevented from the beginning by keeping people actively in the information loop. Furthermore, it also potentially delays the timely execution of a project by re-discussing these issues over and over in groups of various compositions. But, at the end of the day, it is mainly a problem of interpersonal communication, or the lack thereof. How you could prevent such situations? Answer: with a few simple tricks that will stimulation interaction and facilitate communication.
IEEE Engineering Management Review, Mar 1, 2015
ABSTRACT After having discussed various practical aspects of organizational interfaces in a strai... more ABSTRACT After having discussed various practical aspects of organizational interfaces in a straightforward manner over the last 10 articles, we would like to put our spotlight onto a slightly different topic. When we have a closer look at the word ???interface???, we immediately recognize that the word is composed of two elements: "face" and "inter", i.e., the relating element between two or more people. Therefore, in the present article within this series on organizational interfaces, we would like to elaborate on the way you show your face or present your image to people in your organization; we will provide examples on how a person or group of people is perceived by another party and how this impacts the relationship and way of collaboration between multiple entities within an organization.
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2013
ABSTRACT In the previous two articles of this series on organizational interfaces, we considered ... more ABSTRACT In the previous two articles of this series on organizational interfaces, we considered intra-company and inter-company organizational interfaces in general. We now want to take one step back and dive deeper into the interfaces of a multi-site operation. In principle, this is a special case of an intra-company interface with many, if not all the complications of an inter-company interface. In particular, we concluded that as the distance increases between the core of your organizational group and your peers, the greater the difficulties in exchanging ideas and providing project-status information and coherence of action. This is true for distances in the geographical sense of kilometers or miles, but also figuratively speaking in terms of adherence and bonding.
IEEE Engineering Management Review, 2013
ABSTRACT In a previous article of this series we looked into mechanisms of intra-company organiza... more ABSTRACT In a previous article of this series we looked into mechanisms of intra-company organizational interfaces. There, we had seen that in principle, it would be very easy to smoothly organize exchange of information and knowledge within the same company if there were not all the practical aspects of human psychology. But, if the company starts to interact with other legal entities of the same company conglomerate, you can easily guess that this interaction starts to become a real challenge. There is no longer a single CEO that can set a policy or code of conduct. Suddenly you are facing multiple company cultures, even if they all basically bear the same name on their letterhead. Therefore, in this brief article we are going to analyze a few basic aspects related to these inter-company organizational interfaces.
A collection of analog "soft-gate" CMOS ASICs operating in subthreshold-mode was implemented in a... more A collection of analog "soft-gate" CMOS ASICs operating in subthreshold-mode was implemented in a low-cost semi-custom 0.8 µm technology. These soft-gates allow, in particular, the realization of various decoders for simple error correcting codes on the breadboard level. Measurement results are presented for an (8,4,4) Hamming code.
Uploads
Papers by Felix Lustenberger