Adafruit VL53L4CX Time of Flight Distance Sensor

The Adafruit VL53L4CX Time of Flight Sensor is another great Time of Flight distance sensor from ST in the VL5 series of chips, this one is great for long distances - it goes up to 6 meters compared with 4 meter max of the VL53L1X.

The sensor contains a very tiny invisible laser source and a matching sensor. The VL53L4CX can detect the "time of flight", or how long the light has taken to bounce back to the sensor. Since it uses a very narrow light source, it is good for determining distance of only the surface directly in front of it. Unlike sonars that bounce ultrasonic waves, the 'cone' of sensing is very narrow. Unlike IR distance sensors that try to measure the amount of light bounced, the VL53 is much more precise and doesn't have linearity problems or 'double imaging' where you can't tell if an object is very far or very close.


Technical specifications:

• Histogram based technology
• Distance measurement from 0 mm up to 6 m
• Short distance linearity down to 10 mm
• Major improvement in long distance-ranging performance across all targets and light levels
• Field of view (FoV) of 18°
• Multiobject detection capability
• Targets beyond 80 cm range are immune to crosstalk from cover glass, and smudge