A Novel Camera-to-Robot Calibration Method for Vision-Based Floor Measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new camera-to-robot calibration method that combines laser tracker and camera data for ground measurements, achieving high precision in mobile robot localization.

Contribution

It presents a novel calibration approach using a specially designed referencing plate to unify laser tracker and camera measurements for ground-observing robots.

Findings

Achieved sub-millimeter repeatability in experiments.

Successfully integrated laser tracker and camera data for calibration.

Enhanced ground measurement accuracy for mobile robots.

Abstract

A novel hand-eye calibration method for ground-observing mobile robots is proposed. While cameras on mobile robots are common, they are rarely used for ground-observing measurement tasks. Laser trackers are increasingly used in robotics for precise localization. A referencing plate is designed to combine the two measurement modalities of laser-tracker 3D metrology and camera-based 2D imaging. It incorporates reflector nests for pose acquisition using a laser tracker and a camera calibration target that is observed by the robot-mounted camera. The procedure comprises estimating the plate pose, the plate-camera pose, and the robot pose, followed by computing the robot-camera transformation. Experiments indicate sub-millimeter repeatability.