A novel LiDAR sensor alignment inspection system for automobile productions using 1-D photodetector arrays

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel system to inspect the LiDAR sensor misalignment on a vehicle during the sensor assembly process in the autonomous vehicle productions. The inspection system is primarily designed for deployment in the factory-level assembly process for commercial vehicles with ADAS and autonomous driving functions. To obtain sub-degree and millimeter accuracy levels of the LiDAR sensor alignment or the extrinsic pose from the vehicle body, this study proposed a new concept of LiDAR sensor extrinsic calibration method using a target board with embedded photodetector(PD) arrays, named the PD–target system. Furthermore, the proposed system requires only the simple design of the target board at the fixed pose in a close range to be readily applicable in the automobile manufacturing environment. From the estimation of the extrinsic pose of the LiDAR sensor from the target board, the LiDAR sensor alignment with respect to the vehicle body can be easily derived in the controlled factory environment, where positions of both the target board and the vehicle are assumed to be known. The experimental evaluation of the proposed system on low-resolution LiDAR sensor showed that the LiDAR sensor offset pose can be estimated within 0.1 degree and 3 mm levels of precision. The high accuracy and simplicity of the proposed calibration system make it practical for production of reliable and safe autonomous transportation.