Accuracy study of time delay estimation techniques in laser pulse ranger

Time-of-flight measurement by using laser pulses is an alternative method in laser range finding and laser scanning, the echo pulses originating from backscattering of the emitted laser pulse on targets is detected by optical receiver. The distance of target can be obtained by measuring the round-trip time. Time-of-arrival estimation may be based on schemes such as constant-fraction discriminator (CFD) in analog electronics. In contrast, as sampled signals are available, time delay estimation may be based on schemes like direct cross-correlation function (CCF) and average square difference function (ASDF) in digital electronics. By the way, constant-fraction discriminator can also be used in digital electronics. All this three methods are analyzed and compared with each other. It is shown that estimators based on CCF and ASDF are more precise than conventional CFD based estimator.