The high-frequency operation of infrared light sources is becoming more and more versatile for various time-of-flight (TOF) applications in the automotive, industrial, and consumer sectors. Due to the fast switching requirements of these applications, vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) are often used.
However, VCSEL technology also has many disadvantages, including a large number of issues such as availability, eye safety, and high cost. Through extensive experiments and demonstrations, Lumileds, the world's leading manufacturer of LED lighting equipment, has now proven that its Luxeon IR Domed and IRCompact LEDs can replace VCSEL technology and are suitable for TOF applications operating at frequencies up to 40 MHz.
To prove this, a team from Lumileds and Melexis, a global supplier of microelectronic semiconductor solutions, developed an evaluation kit that allows users to run these IR LEDs at frequencies up to 40MHz.
Emil Fancsali, director of CPAT EMEA at Lumileds, said: "The illuminator evaluation kit reduces the rise and fall time of light pulses to 6ns, which is 4 times that of other similar LED devices. This is achieved by optimizing Luxeon IR LED peak current response, PCB design and enhancement Electronic device implementation. This illuminator kit enables LED-based TOF systems with accuracy and range comparable to VCSEL-based solutions, while reducing overall system costs. "
Wouter Schrama, senior product manager of Luxeon IR at Lumileds, said: "This development will help bring cost-effective and eye-safe distance measurement technology to a wider range of applications such as driver monitoring systems, logistics navigation, gesture recognition systems and Drones, etc. "