Closed-form solution to 3D points for estimating extrinsic parameters of camera and laser sensor

Integration systems based on cameras and laser rangefinders has been applied in many researches on robotics, autonomous navigation vehicles, and intelligent transportation systems. Relative information between sensors is usually required for systems using multiple sensors. This paper will present a method for recovering extrinsic parameters of a system based on an omnidirectional camera and laser rangefinder. The calibration method uses a discontiguous calibration pattern, which emphasizes laser information of range. It supports to extract corresponding feature points between camera images and laser range scans. A closed-form solution is also presented for estimating 3D image points based on the PnP technique. Finally, corresponding 3D points are used to recover extrinsic parameters of location and direction of a camera with respect to a laser rangefinder.