DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 7, 11-14 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Whyte, Refael, et al. "Application of lidar techniques to time-of-flight range imaging." Applied optics 54.33 (2015): 9654-9664.
Referring to claims 1, 14, and 17, Whyte shows a time of flight camera (see abstract also see section 3 “Experimental Setup”) which includes
a signal generator (see section 3 note the experimental setup includes a AMCW and SFCW generator) configured to generate a source modulation signal and to modify the frequency of the source modulation signal by at least one multiple of an offset frequency (see section 2 subsection C note the “Let the modulation frequency be held constant during any individual frame capture, and be incremented by a constant amount between each capture, that is, stepped frequency continuous wave.”),
a camera light source configured to transmit light modulated by a modulation signal generated by the signal generator (see section 3 “Experimental Setup” note the TOF camera includes a modulated light source)
a camera sensor configured to capture time of flight camera data frames from received reflected light (see section 3 “Experimental Setup” note the camera),
a processor configured to compile a data set from captured time of flight data frames (see section 2 and 3 note that the processing as shown in these sections inherently requires a processor) and to
complete a spectral analysis of the received dataset which identifies frequency and phase value pairs indicative of the range of the camera to an object represented in the data frames (see section 2C note the equations 18-21 also see figure 1 shows the specific separation of AMCW and FMCW and the SFCW combines both frequency and phase), and
determine an estimated camera range value to an object represented in the data frames using the frequency value (see equation under section 2C 21 note the correlation between the estimated frequency and the distance), and
determine a corrected camera range value using the estimated camera range value and the phase value (see section 2C.1, specifically equation 22), and
providing a camera output which identifies the corrected range values of objects represented in the data frames of the dataset (see section 4B also note table 1).
Referring to claims 2 and 15, Whyte shows the processor is configured to apply a calibration to the frames of the captured data set or during the capture of the data set so that the results of the spectral analysis yields a zero phase value when interpolated to a zero frequency value (see equation 20 of section 2C note the phase will be zero when the frequency is zero).
Referring to claim 5, Whyte shows the range value is captured by the expression claimed (see equation 21).
Referring to claim 7, Whyte shows the range value is captured by the expression claimed (see equation 22 (note this equation implies that k=0).
Referring to claim 11, Whyte shows the captured data frames of the dataset are ordered prior to spectral analysis being completed to present the camera data frame captured using light modulated with the lowest frequency modulation signal as the first data frame of the camera data set with each subsequent frame being captured using the next lowest frequency modulation signal (see section 2.C note equation 18 shows that modulation frequency increases with each capture).
Referring to claim 12, Whyte shows dataset are captured using light modulated with the lowest frequency modulation signal as the first data frame of the camera data set with each subsequent frame being captured using the next lowest frequency modulation signal (see section 2.C equation 18).
Referring to claim 13, Whyte shows the additional step of validating a corrected camera range value against known harmonic artefacts and removing invalidated corrected range values from the camera output (see section 2.C.3).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 2-4, 15, 16, 18, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Whyte in view of Lickfold, Carl A., et al. "Simultaneous phase and frequency stepping in time-of-flight range imaging." 2019 IEEE SENSORS. IEEE, 2019.
Referring to claims 2, 15, and 18, Whyte shows the frames of the captured data set or during the capture of the data set so that the results of the spectral analysis yields a zero phase value when interpolated to a zero frequency value (see equation 20 of section 2C note the phase will be zero when the frequency is zero) however does not make reference to calibration based on these frames.
Lickford shows the processor is configured to apply a calibration to the frames of the captured data set or during the capture of the data set so that the results of the spectral analysis yields a zero phase value when interpolated to a zero frequency value (see section II. B page 2). It would have been obvious to apply a calibration to the frames of the captured data as shown by Lickford because this reduces the ambiguity of the range as taught by Lickford.
Referring to claims 3, 4, 16, and 19, while note specifically shown by Whyte or Lickford the use of a rotation matrix or windowing during calibration as claimed would have been extremely well known to one of ordinary skill in the art. This adds no new or unexpected results.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Whyte as cited above.
Referring to claim 6, Whyte renders obvious showing a range value in multiples of the range resolution (see the paragraph under equation 22). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the estimated camera range value is determined by multiplying an index value associated with the frequency by the range resolution of the camera because this is simply a function of the resolution of the camera used and adds no new or unexpected results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LUKE D RATCLIFFE whose telephone number is (571)272-3110. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM EST.
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/LUKE D RATCLIFFE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3645