Laser rangefinders generally have two methods of distance measurement: the pulse method and the phase method.

The process of pulse ranging is that the laser light emitted by the rangefinder is reflected by the measured object and then received by the rangefinder. The rangefinder also records the round-trip time of the laser. Half of the product of the speed of light and the round-trip time is the distance between the rangefinder and the object being measured. The pulse method of distance measurement accuracy is generally about ±1m. In addition, the measurement blind area of this type of rangefinder is generally about 15 meters.

Phase laser rangefinder uses the frequency of the radio band to modulate the amplitude of the laser beam, and measures the phase delay produced by the modulated light entering and leaving the measuring line once, and then converts the wavelength of the distance modulated light represented by the phase delay according to the phase delay. This means that the time required for light to pass through the round-trip measurement line is measured by the indirect method.