Simultaneous Hand–Eye and Intrinsic Calibration of a Laser Profilometer Mounted on a Robot Arm

A method for simultaneous laser profilometer and hand–eye calibration in relation to an industrial robot as well as its implementation is presented. In contrast to other methods, the new calibration procedure requires the measurement of only one reference geometry to calculate all the transformation parameters. The reference geometry is measured with a laser profilometer from 15 different poses. The intrinsic parameters of the profilometer, as well as the extrinsic (hand–eye) parameters, are then numerically optimized to achieve the minimum deviation between the reference and the measured geometry. The method was characterized with experiments that revealed a standard deviation of the displacements between the reference geometry after the calibration of less than 0.105 mm in the case of using the robot-arm actuator and 0.046 mm in case of using a 5-axis CNC milling machine. The entire procedure, including measurement and calculation, can be completely automated and lasts less than 10 min. This opens up possibilities for regular on-site recalibration of the entire system.