Extrinsic Calibration between a Camera and a 2D Laser Rangefinder using a Photogrammetric Control Field

The combination of a camera and a 2D laser rangefinder (LRF) is widely used in robotics, mapping, and unmanned driving to simultaneously obtain the 3D geometry and color texture of a scene. However, data misregistration between the camera and the LRF frequently occurs due to the difficulty of precise installation and alignment between them. Extrinsic calibration between the camera and the LRF is necessary. In this study, a photogrammetric control field is used to perform a robust and accurate calibration between the camera and the LRF which requires only one shot. With the use of the photogrammetric control field as the common reference, extrinsic calibration between two sensors is decoupled by calibrating each sensor separately. First, using the room corner of the control field, the LRF is calibrated with respect to the control field by solving a simplified perspective-three-point problem. Then, a large number of control points are used to obtain the robust and accurate extrinsic parameters of the camera with respect to the control field. Experiments with simulated and real data were performed. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme is accurate, precise, and robust under different noise levels, and the calibration results can be utilized in indoor and outdoor applications.