Improved algorithm for the extrinsic calibration of a camera and laser range finder using 3D-3D correspondences

Extrinsic calibration between a camera and laser range finder (LRF) is required to integrate information from both sensor. In this paper, we propose an improved algorithm of our earlier work [1] for the extrinsic calibration of a camera and laser range finder. We improve our previous algorithm in two directions. First, control points on laser range finder’s data are obtained by finding the crossing point of two fitted lines where previous algorithm directly used laser range finder’s data. It can reduce the effect of noisy measurement of laser range finder. Second, difference of distance on calibration plane is used as cost where previous algorithm used matching portion. Proposed algorithm gives an improved result than previous one. It is verified thorough experimental results.