Camera Calibration for Road Applications

This paper describes an algorithm for the calibration of TV cameras, particularly suited to autonomous navigation applications. It makes use of the road itself as a calibration structure. If the lane width and the length of the discontinuous longitudinal stripes are known, the image plane position of the lane borders allows a complete (extrinsic and intrinsic) camera calibration. Even if the two lengths are not known, the method can be used to calibrate a secondary steerable-zoomable camera with respect to a primary, calibrated one. Theoretical formulas and graphs are presented to determine the precision of the method for every setup. The theoretical formulas are confirmed by means of real world experiments.