Data Fusion Calibration for a 3D Laser Range Finder and a Camera using Inertial Data

P. Núñez, P. Drews Jr, R. Rocha and J. Dias

In Proc. of 4th European Conf. on Mobile Robots (ECMR'2009), Mini/Dubrovnik, Croatia, pages 31-36, Sep. 23-25, 2009

Abstract

The use of 3D laser range finder (LRF) and cameras is becoming common in the navigation application for mobile robots. This paper proposes a new method to perform the extrinsic calibration between a pinhole camera and a 3D-LRF with the aid of an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). While state of the art calibration procedures require a large number of points for robust calibration, the proposed approach is innovative in terms of higher flexibility and wider range of application. The proposed method is based on the presentation to the sensor platform of a stationary planar board containing a checkerboard pattern. The homography which defines the rotation matrix between the LRF and camera is achieved moving the robot and observing the resulting motion of the sensors. This step attempts to solve the well-known homogeneous transform equation of the form {\em {\bf $AX$ = $BX$}}. Next, translation is calculated using a commonly least-squares estimation algorithm according to the corners of the pattern, previously detected by both, camera and LRF. The developed algorithm was tested on a mobile robot which is equipped with sensor platform composed of pinhole camera, LRF pan-tilt unit and an IMU, and proved to be very accurate. Furthermore, the applicability of the method is greatly expanded, requiring attachment of a simple inertial sensor to the sensor platform.

Index Terms — 3D laser sensors, laser-camera calibration.

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BibTeX

@INPROCEEDINGS(Nunez_et_al_09a,

AUTHOR = "N{\’u}{\~n}ez, P. and Drews Jr, P. and Rocha, R. and Dias, J.",

TITLE = "Data Fusion Calibration for a 3D Laser Range Finder and a Camera using Inertial Data",

BOOKTITLE = "Proc. of 4th European Conf. on Mobile Robots (ECMR'2009)",

ADDRESS = "Mini/Dubrovnik, Croatia",

YEAR = "2009",

MONTH = "Sep.",

PAGES = "31-36"

)

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Last update: 21/10/2009