White Paper · Broadcom AFBR-S50

[Whitepaper] Enhancing Drone Autonomy with Broadcom Time-of-Flight Sensors

Precision spatial awareness for UAVs operating in GPS-denied, high-glare, and high-speed environments.

Drones using Broadcom AFBR-S50 time-of-flight sensors over varied terrain

Drones are only as smart as the sensors guiding them. When GPS drops out, sunlight overwhelms cameras, or another UAV enters the flight path at speed, a fraction of a second can decide whether a mission succeeds or ends in a crash. The Broadcom AFBR-S50 family of time-of-flight sensors gives drones the precise, jamming-resistant spatial awareness they need to land, navigate, and avoid collisions — even in the conditions that defeat GPS and conventional optical systems. Download the white paper to see how the AFBR-S50 stacks up against radar and GNSS, which variants are purpose-built for drones, and how to evaluate one in your platform.

Why download this white paper?

  • See how ToF compares to GPS and radar — a side-by-side breakdown of accuracy, update rate, indoor performance, and jamming resistance.
  • Match the right sensor to your application — walkthroughs of five core drone use cases, from precision landing to laser range finding.
  • Get the full AFBR-S50 product family specs — range, field of view, beam spot, and wavelength data for every variant, plus reference designs and evaluation kits.

Built for drone applications

  • +100m Long-range detection
  • 200 klx Ambient light immunity
  • 3 kHz Frame rate
  • < 1g Lightweight, no moving parts

Laser Class 1 · Drop-in compatible across variants · Open-source API (PX4, ROS 2, ArduPilot)

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