Extrinsic calibration of a multi-beam LiDAR system with improved intrinsic laser parameters using v-shaped planes and infrared images

In this paper we present a novel method for the calibration of LiDAR-camera systems. The method uses infrared (IR) images to establish laser-pixel correspondences between a multi-layer laser scanner and an IR image sensor. Based on the established correspondences, the intrinsic parameters of the LiDAR system and of the camera as well as the extrinsic parameters are adjusted. The proposed method works in a two-stage manner. The linear estimation of the extrinsic parameters are first obtained using an efficient PnP algorithm, while in the second stage the extrinsic and intrinsic parameters are optimized using a nonlinear algorithm. Experiments show promising results.