Distance estimation based on phase detection with robust Chinese remainder theorem

Distance estimation using multifrequency phases measurement is a common practice in many areas of engineering. This method brings in the issue of phase ambiguity. Some Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) based phase unwrapping algorithms have been suggested to solve the problem, however, these algorithms either have high complexity or lack precision. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm to reconstruct the unknown distance from the contaminated wrapped phases. The proposed method can be separated into two stages. The first stage is to obtain the optimal estimate of the common remainder which is significant to the estimation. In the second stage, the indefinite distance is estimated by using the extended CRT. Simulations test the validity of the proposed algorithm.