目前立體顯示器正快速的發展，因此相對應的立體取像與影像處理技術需求隨之上升。其中，三維立體影像感測器也因需求增加而逐漸受到重視，並應用於一些工業用途中，例如人臉辨識或機器視覺等。本論文主要提出一個採用飛行時間法之立體影像感測系統，藉搭配可連續發出調變光之三原色光源模組以取得彩色立體影像。論文中提出一個新式解調變像素，透過四相位取樣的操作方式取得調變光波的相位變化，可獲得相位的資訊。本系統採用台灣積體電路公司的0.18微米1P6M一般邏輯製程將92 × 30個新式解調變像素與所需的影像讀取電路實現於晶片之中。系統中利用測試板上內嵌的複雜型可程式邏輯元件控制整個系統的時脈訊號，以達到光源與晶片的同步。再者，透過自行開發的三色LED陣列發光模組以30 MHz 正弦波振幅調變的方式分別對前方物體照射，由於發射的光波會受到物體反射而回到立體影像感測晶片，利用此一特性將發射光與反射光之間的相位差計算出飛行時間，以實現在連續波形變化之飛行時間測定。且因發射的紅、綠、藍色光源各具有不同光譜分佈，會與目標物的吸收光譜相互摺積而造成反射光譜變化，透過反射比值差異即可推估受測物體的色彩。
另外，為了進一步瞭解系統特性，分別針對光學與電路的雜訊進行分析與評估，除探討一般影像感測器的隨機雜訊與固定雜訊外，特別針對影像感測晶片內高頻操作或高功率消耗之週邊電路所造成的少數雜散載子與受熱載子，進行評估與防範；透過模擬與實際測試雜訊分佈的情形，進一步得出適當電路放置距離與防護措施之參考依據。另一方面，對於背景固定光源與調變光源的影響亦進行光學分析與測試並建立完整的性能評估。
在立體影像的距離評估部份，使用紅、綠、藍色的光源會因為散射程度差異而造成不同結果，根據量測結果顯示在3.5到5公尺可得到較佳的平均誤差，而紅、綠、藍光的距離誤差分別為3.82、4.10與4.88 公分。此一結果顯示本系統與目前市售之立體影像感測器規格相去不遠。同時，在平均色彩表現上，三色分別可得到34.31、33.19與31.99的色差，雖然對於高彩影像的辨識上仍有困難，但已具備基本的色彩辨識能力。最後，論文中指出多個性能仍需改善的地方，包涵晶片精準度、色彩辨識度與系統性能等方面之改進，並提出可能的改善方法，以提供未來後續發展之用。

As the market of three-dimensional (3D) displays continuously expends, the demand for 3D-related products is rapidly increasing. The range image sensor based on the Time-of-Flight (TOF) technique is one of these products and widely used in industrial applications, such as face recognition and machine vision. A novel pixel design was proposed and embedded in a CMOS image sensor to capture the delay time between the emitted and received light waves. The test image chip, with a 92 × 30 pixel array, was fabricated using the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) 0.18 µm CMOS 1-Poly and 6-metal general logic process. The control signals of the test chip and the modulated signal of the light illuminator were generated by an on-board complex programmable logic device (CPLD) for synchronization. To capture a color range image, a 30MHz sinusoidal red, green, and blue light was emitted sequentially from a light emitting diode (LED) array and reflected back from objects onto the sensor. The distance between the sensor and objects can be calculated from the phase difference. Based on the differences of the reflection coefficients of red, green, and blue light, the color information can be roughly estimated. The measured distance and color information were compared with the actual distance and color-corrected images, respectively.
In order to characterize the minority carriers, several components were embedded outside the pixel array or inside the pixels. These induced carriers affected the adjacent pixels and lead to measurement error. To eliminate these influences, N-well and N-diffusion guard rings were used to absorb the moving carriers and succeeded in decreasing the number of stray minority carriers. According to the measured and simulated results, a safe distance for placing high-frequency or high power-consumption circuits was suggested to the rangefinder designers.
A series of experiments were performed and demonstrated to better understand the performance of this range finding system, including the integration time test, range error test, color test, and noise prevention test. It was found that the average distance errors could be achieved to 3.82 cm, 4.10 cm, and 4.88 cm while using red, green, and blue light in range from 350 cm to 500 cm. Such performance of space resolution is as well as commercial image rangefinders. The average color differences of all measured ranges were 34.31, 33.19, and 31.99 in CIE76 color space. Although the color identification ability is not good enough to identify the true color image, it still provided the basic ability in color identification. At the bottom of this thesis, there are some improvement issue that can upgrade the performance of this system, including the improvement of range accuracy, color identification and system operation. Furthermore, several probably solutions for these issues are provided for follow-up studies.

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