Digital camera and 3D laser range finder system calibration for robot navigation

Abstract

Navigation of autonomous mobile robots in 3D needs information about environment their are operating. One of the ways to get that information is by the use of various 3D range finders. Currently, modern 3D laser scanners are very expensive, therefore in the paper we propose the new 3D range scanner composed of the 2D laser scanner with an extra gear supplying the third degree of freedom. Such combination allowed building a non-expensive 3D range scanner, suitable for mobile robots navigation in 3D. Scanning system effectiveness was evaluated between the known and measured object dimensions. This paper describes the calibration of digital camera with 3D laser range finder system. Then the 2D image matrix elements can be attributed to the depth of the 3D laser scanner data. Such mapping might be also available in the reverse option to 3D laser scanned points assign the real colour of an object from the digital camera data array. 3D laser scanning system can provide spatial information about objects in the environment regardless of the texture. The synergy of these systems, we get not only the position of objects in environment, but also the texture. Composed of 2D image data array depth map can be used for identification of objects in the environment, avoiding obstacles etc.