Sensor alignment towards an omni-directional measurement using an intelligent vehicle

An intelligent vehicle system is deeloped, where five single-row laser scannners are mounted on the car to profile object geometry along the streets from different viewpoints and with different directions; a GPS (Global Positioning System)/IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) based navigation unit is also applied to give outputs of vehicle pose. This paper focus on sensor alignment in order to achieve an omni-directional laser measurement of dynamic urban environment using an intelligent vehicle. An algorithm is proposed, where the laser scanners that facing towards different directions are aligned through horizontal and vertical matching of laser points. Experimental results are presented demonstrating that a comprehensive knowledge of the environment can be achieved, and shortages of each individual sensor can be compensated through such a sensor fusion.