Time-of-flight safety photoelectric barrier and method of monitoring a protective field

1. A safety photoelectric barrier for monitoring a protective field, said photoelectric barrier comprising:

a single-sided transceiver bar with:

a housing;

a plurality of transceiver modules each having a radiation emitting unit emitting radiation towards a reference target, the protective field being located between said transceiver bar and the reference target, a radiation detecting unit detecting radiation incident on the transceiver module, and a signal processing unit evaluating the detected radiation regarding a distance information and an intensity information and for generating a binary output signal indicating the presence or absence of an object within the protective field;

a controller module evaluating the binary output signals generated by said transceiver modules and generating a safety signal in response to the evaluated output signals; and

an internal temperature sensor for performing a temperature compensation of said distance and intensity information;

wherein the radiation detecting unit comprises at least a first and a second photosensitive element redundantly evaluating the distance and intensity information.

2. A safety photoelectric barrier according to claim 1 , wherein said radiation detecting unit is operable to calculate said distance information based on a time-of-flight principle, and simultaneously to detect the intensity information of the incident radiation.

3. A safety photoelectric barrier according to claim 2 , wherein said distance information is calculated based on a phase shift between the radiation transmitted by the radiation emitting element and the incident radiation.

4. A safety photoelectric barrier according to claim 1 , wherein said first and second photosensitive elements each comprise a separate time-of-flight (TOF) device selected from the group consisting of a charge coupled device (CCD) and a CMOS sensor device.

5. A safety photoelectric barrier according to claim 4 , wherein each time-of-flight device comprises an array of photosensitive pixels.

6. A safety photoelectric barrier of claim 1 wherein said radiation emitting unit is controlled by said signal processing unit and comprises at least one light emitter selected from the group consisting of a light emitting diode (LED), a laser diode, and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL).

7. A safety photoelectric barrier of claim 1 wherein said signal processing unit comprises at least one on-chip controller monolithically integrated with said first or second photosensitive element.

8. A safety photoelectric barrier of claim 1 wherein said signal processing unit comprises at least one microcontroller separate from said first and second photosensitive element.

9. A safety photoelectric barrier according claim 1 wherein multiple transceiver modules are arranged within said housing with distances between each other that conform to specifications of a standardized perimeter access control (PAC) system.

10. A safety photoelectric barrier according to claim 1 further including at least one of an alignment aid emitting visible light for aligning the photoelectric barrier and a radiation emitting unit operable to emit visible light to be simultaneously used as an alignment aid.

11. A safety photoelectric barrier according claim 1 further comprising at least one of a retro-reflective tape and prismatic reflective element to form said reference target.

12. A method of monitoring a protective field by means of a safety photoelectric barrier, said photoelectric barrier comprising a single-sided transceiver bar with a housing, a plurality of transceiver modules, and a controller module, the transceiver modules each having a radiation emitting unit, a radiation detecting unit, and a signal processing unit, said method comprising the steps of:

emitting radiation from said radiation emitting unit towards a reference target with an arbitrary reflectivity and geometry, the protective field being located between said transceiver bar and the reference target;

detecting radiation incident on the transceiver module, and evaluating the detected radiation regarding distance information and intensity information and for generating a binary output signal indicating the presence or absence of an object within the protective field;

evaluating the binary output signals generated by said transceiver modules and generating a safety signal in response to the evaluated output signals; and

measuring a temperature of said transceiver modules and performing a temperature compensation of said distance and intensity information;

wherein the radiation detecting unit comprises at least a first and a second photosensitive element so that the step of evaluating the distance and intensity information is performed independently by two redundant photosensitive elements.

13. A method according to claim 12 , further comprising a teach-in step in which the distance and intensity information of said reference target is detected and stored as reference values by said signal processing unit, wherein values measured during a run mode are compared to said reference values for generating the binary output signal indicating the presence or absence of an object within the protective field.

14. A method according to claim 13 , wherein the teach-in and the measurement steps are both performed for more than one radiation pulse frequency and/or amplitude.

15. A method according to claim 12 wherein in the teach-in step only a closest object is evaluated as said reference target, and wherein radiation reflected by objects outside of this reference target field of view are ignored.

16. A method according to according to claim 12 further comprising the step of performing a compensation for a long term drift in the measurement values indicating said distance and intensity information.

17. A method according to claim 12 wherein for a system check a modulation frequency of the radiation emitting unit, an integration time and/or a phase delay are varied.

18. A method according to claim 12 wherein different radiation pulse frequencies and/or amplitudes are used for detecting multipath reflections.