Worldwide availability of ultrasonic ToF sensor platform

TDK Corporation has announced the worldwide availability of the Chirp CH101 ultra-low power integrated ultrasonic ToF range sensor platform solution, which comprises the CH101 MEMS sensor, sensor modules, and developer kits. Chirp’s MEMS ultrasonic technology uses a proprietary ToF range sensor in a 3.5mm x 3.5mm package that integrates a MEMS ultrasonic transducer with a power-efficient DSP on a low-power mixed-signal ASIC. As the first commercially offered MEMS-based ultrasonic ToF sensor, it is ultra-low-power, compact, immune to lighting conditions and target composition/colour, has a configurable FoV, and a flexible DSP able to handle an assortment of ultrasonic signal-processing algorithms.

The sensor allows flexible industrial design options for a wide range of use-case scenarios, incorporating range-finding, presence/proximity sensing, material composition, object-detection/avoidance, as well as wearable range-sensing tags to allow social distancing and contact tracing to aid people to remain safely distanced from each another, throughout COVID-19 and other scenarios.

Ensuring safe social distancing in the workplace is one piece of the puzzle in the era of COVID-19. Tracking-solution providers can utilise Chirp ultrasonic ToF sensors to detect proximity breaches and give warnings before crossing social distancing guidelines. Chirp offers a complete hardware and software reference design to make it simple for solution providers to quickly include ultrasonic range-finding technology into their tracking solutions.