US 12,450,915 B2
Systems and methods for calibration and validation of range sensors and LiDAR sensors mounted on a vehicle that have non-overlapping fields of view (FOV)
Hatem Alismail, Pittsburgh, PA (US); and Michael Schoenberg, Seattle, WA (US)
Assigned to Ford Global Technologies, LLC, Dearborn, MI (US)
Filed by FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, Dearborn, MI (US)
Filed on Oct. 26, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/049,988.
Prior Publication US 2024/0144694 A1, May 2, 2024
Int. Cl. G06V 20/58 (2022.01); B60W 60/00 (2020.01); G06T 7/292 (2017.01); G06V 30/19 (2022.01)
CPC G06V 20/58 (2022.01) [B60W 60/001 (2020.02); B60W 2420/408 (2024.01); B60W 2554/4041 (2020.02); B60W 2554/4048 (2020.02); G06T 7/292 (2017.01); G06V 30/19093 (2022.01)] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for calibration of LiDAR sensors mounted on a vehicle, the method comprising:
collecting, from a first LiDAR sensor mounted on the vehicle, first sensor data corresponding to a calibration environment;
collecting, from a second sensor LiDAR sensor mounted on the vehicle, second sensor data corresponding to the calibration environment, wherein a first field of view (FOV) of the first LiDAR sensor does not overlap with a second FOV of the second LiDAR sensor;
transforming the first sensor data to generate a first aligned frame in a global reference frame;
transforming the second sensor data to generate a second aligned frame in the global reference frame; and
aligning the first reference frame with the second reference frame to extrinsically calibrate the first LiDAR sensor and the second LiDAR sensor, wherein:
collecting the first sensor data or the second sensor data comprises:
rotating a rotating platform in the calibration environment to a plurality of angular positions, the vehicle being mounted on the rotating platform, and
collecting, using that LiDAR sensor, at each of the plurality of angular positions, a sweep as a collection of LiDAR scans; and
transforming the first sensor data to generate the first aligned frame or transforming the second sensor data to generate the second aligned frame comprises performing inter-sweep alignment between a reference sweep and two or more of a plurality of other sweeps collected by that LiDAR sensor to generate a plurality of aligned subsets of sweeps.