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 . Claims 1-4 are presented for examination.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because it includes the limitation “the a plurality of pulsed light beams”. This limitation appears to have a typographical error. Examiner recommends deletion of the word “a” to resolve the issue. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1 and 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US20200249324 (hereinafter Steinberg) in view of US20240019556 (hereinafter Yang) and further in view of US20210396876 (hereinafter Nagai).
Regarding Claim 1, Steinberg teaches a distance measuring apparatus comprising:
a light-emitting portion (812, see FIG. 8A) that emits a plurality of pulsed light beams (813) and that transmits a plurality of light-emitting pulse signals corresponding to the plurality of pulsed light beams;
an object light-receiving portion (806, see FIG. 8A) that receives a plurality of object pulsed light beams that are reflected by a distance-measurement object (820) among the a plurality of pulsed light beams (822, see FIG. 8A) and that transmits a plurality of object pulse signals corresponding to the plurality of object pulsed light beams (see arrow pointing from 806 to 804);
a time-to-digital converter (804) that converts a light-emitting timing of the plurality of light-emitting pulse signals and an object light-receiving timing of the plurality of object pulse signals into digital values; and
Steinberg is silent as to the internal components of processing unit 804 and so fails to teach the remainder of the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Yang teaches specifically that its processor device 24 includes a time-to-digital converter (see [0079], describing use of the TDC to generate time signals from the receiving sensors) and a histogram-generating-and-distance-calculating unit ([0080] describes how a histogram is generated from the timing data output by the TDC) that generates an object histogram that has a horizontal axis representing a difference between the digital value of the object light-receiving timing and the digital value of the light-emitting timing and that calculates a distance to the distance-measurement object, based on a center of gravity of the object histogram ([0088] also describes how a center of gravity of the histogram is used to determine the time information for a point in the point cloud),
Steinberg and Yang both describe implementations of pulsed LIDAR systems. While Steinberg doesn’t go into the specifics of how to identify the most accurate time from a collection of returned pulses, Yang describes how a center of gravity analysis can be performed on the histogram to accurately identify time of flight when there are slight variations in the signal return timing for a particular target. A person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing would have found it obvious to incorporate the teachings of Yang in order to fully realize an operational version of Steinberg since combining prior art elements according to known methods leads to this predictable result.
The combination of Steinberg and Yang fails to teach wherein the light-emitting portion emits the plurality of pulsed light beams at a random interval corresponding to a uniform random number.
However, Nagai teaches wherein the light-emitting portion emits the plurality of pulsed light beams at a random interval corresponding to a uniform random number ([0044] of Nagai teaches the use of a linear feedback register to generate pseudo random numbers for the emission of pulse intervals in a LIDAR system).
Nagai and the combination of Steinberg and Yang are both directed to pulsed LIDAR systems utilizing histogram analysis to determine distance to objects via time of flight analysis. A person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing would have found it obvious to modify the system taught by the combination of Steinberg and Yang with the teachings of varying the pulse repetition interval randomly. Doing so would have been obvious since as pointed out in [0067] of Nagai varying the light emission interval prevents interference since the LIDAR knows the interval at which the pulses were randomly emitted.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Steinberg, Yang and Nagai teaches the distance measuring apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the light-emitting portion includes a linear-feedback shift register that generates the uniform random number ([0044] of Yang teaches the use of a linear shift register to generate the random pulse repetition interval at which to emit the LIDAR pulses).
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Steinberg, Yang and Nagai teaches the distance measuring apparatus according to claim 1,
wherein the object light-receiving portion transmits (806) the plurality of object pulse signals corresponding to the plurality of object pulsed light beams that are reflected by a non-distance-measurement object that differs from the distance-measurement object among the plurality of pulsed light beams (FIG. 8A of Steinberg shows that light reflections from outside the lidar housing return to sensor 806 regardless of whether the light reflects back from the object or the non-distance measuring object),
wherein the histogram-generating-and-distance-calculating unit generates a non-object histogram that has a horizontal axis representing a difference between a digital value of a reference light-receiving timing and the digital value of the object light-receiving timing of the plurality of object pulsed light beams that are reflected by the non-distance-measurement object, and wherein the non-object histogram is lower than the object histogram as a whole and has a flat shape (FIG. 2 of Yang shows how the object return signal histogram is represented in the middle of the range and the non-distance-measurement object or noise is flat around the peak representing the object).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Steinberg, Yang and Nagai as applied to claim 1 and further in view of US20140160461 (hereinafter Van Der Temple).
Regarding Claim 2, the distance measuring apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:
a reflection member (852, see FIG. 8 of Steinberg); and
a reference light-receiving portion (808) that receives a plurality of reference pulsed light beams that are reflected by the reflection member among the plurality of pulsed light beams and that transmits a plurality of reference pulse signals corresponding to the plurality of reference pulsed light beams (the pulse information travels along the arrow running between 808 and 804 of Steinberg),
wherein the time-to-digital converter converts a reference light-receiving timing of the plurality of reference pulse signals into a digital value ([0088] of Nagai as applied above to the object histogram would apply in the same way to the reference pulse signal analysis), however the combination of Steinberg, Yang and Nagai do not teach the rest of Claim 2.
However Van Der Temple in combination with the previously cited references teaches wherein the histogram-generating-and-distance-calculating unit generates a reference histogram that has a horizontal axis representing a difference between the digital value of the reference light-receiving timing and the digital value of the light-emitting timing and calculates the distance to the distance-measurement object, based on a difference between a center of gravity of the reference histogram and the center of gravity of the object histogram ([0026] of Van Der Temple describes how any perturbations in the system can be addressed by measuring the time delay between the received reflection signal and a reference signal).
Van Der Temple and the combination of Steinberg, Yang and Nagai are both directed to pulsed LIDAR systems. A person having ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing would have found it obvious to modify the system of Steinberg, Yang and Nagai to incorporate the use of a reference signal for correction of the distance measurements in light of [0026] of Van Der Temple which points out how the reference signal allows for the removal of any system perturbations that could negatively affect the precision of the distance measurement.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN DAVID WIGGER whose telephone number is (571)272-4208. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30am to 7:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Helal Algahaim can be reached at (571)270-5227. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BENJAMIN DAVID WIGGER/Examiner, Art Unit 3645
/HELAL A ALGAHAIM/SPE , Art Unit 3645
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