Extrinsic calibration of a camera and a 2D laser range finder using ping pong balls and the corner of a room

Abstract

Three different methods for extrinsic calibration of a 2D laser range finder and a camera using ping pong balls and the corner of a room are presented and compared with four recent state-of-the-art methods. In the first method, a servo motor and gimbal were used to rotate the laser rangefinder to produce a 3D point cloud from the test field. In the second method, the laser range finder was solely used to get a 2D point cloud of the ping pong balls. In the third approach by employing the pyramid that was built in the room's corner and resolving the perspective-three-point problem, the 2D LRF calibration parameters with respect to the test field were determined with just one scan. In comparison to the estimated values produced by the third approach, the extrinsic calibration parameters derived with the 3D point cloud were more accurate. The second approach produced the worst outcomes, although it was the most straightforward approach.