After a long time when I put off this project the new time-of-flight sensor was introduced by ST, VL53L1X, which is pin-to-pin compatible with the VL53L0X, but it's able to measure longer distances. Therefore it was a logical decision to change to this sensor.

Also I thought a lot of sending the I2C data trough the rotary transformer lines. The  drum motor has 3 separate rotary transformer lines, and I will dedicate one line for the power supply of the sensors.  Therefore 2 remain for the data sending. One of my ideas was to place an attiny or an other small microcontroller which converts the I2C signals to a custom serial communication, or to a PWM based signal. These ideas require a dedicated circuits on the rotating head and on the base as well, and a custom SW for the coding/decoding of the signals, which probably decrease the sample rate.

Then I came across with the LTC6820 which provides bidirectional SPI communications between two isolated devices through a single twistedpair connection. I thought it has to be created for I2C as well, and sure Analog Devices has the IC with same functionality, but for I2C.

So this will be the next milestone to try out the LTC4310 with the rotary transformer, and send data from the VL53L1X.