Method for using a single optical emitter/receiver pair for creating a light curtain using LCD+MEMS technology for beam deflection

摘要

Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate increasing a coverage area for an emitter-receiver pair in a light curtain by generating multiple light beams from a single emitter and aggregating the light beams at a corresponding receiver. A plurality of light beams can be generated by reflection off of a MEMS mirror associated with the emitter, which can then be reflected from receiver-side mirrors along generally parallel paths, to corresponding emitter-side mirrors, which in turn reflect the light beams back to a MEMS mirror associated with the receiver. The receiver-side MEMS mirror can aggregate the reflected light beams for detection thereof by the receiver. According to a related aspect, transmissive LCD arrays can be employed at both the emitter and receiver to generate and recombine a plurality of light beams, respectively.