US Patent 10156634 Object detection system

An obstacle detection system includes an emitter that emits a wide angle signal, and a receiver that receives at least a portion of the wide angle signal. The obstacle detection system also includes a memory for storing a time window and a baseline signal characteristic, and a processing device that compares attributes of the received signal to information stored in the memory. The processing device determines whether at least a portion of the emitted signal was received at the receiver within the time window. The processing device also determines whether a signal characteristic of the received signal corresponds to the baseline signal characteristic.