A system for detecting distances for vehicle and robotic applications includes a transducer for generating a transmission signal to be sent in the direction of an obstacle, and for obtaining a receiving signal corresponding to an echo produced by the reflection of the transmission signal off the obstacle. The transducer is driven by a chaos generator, such as a Chua's circuit. The system also includes a correlator for correlating the transmission signal and the receiving signal so that the distance between the obstacle and the transducer is identified by an instant at which the correlation assumes a high value. The transmission signal may be a square-wave signal selectively generated with one first frequency and one second frequency, and jumps between the two frequencies are determined by the instants of emission of the pulses generated by an analog type pulse generator driven by the chaos generator.