Sensor calibration for autonomous systems and applications

Abstract

In various examples, sensor configuration for autonomous or semi-autonomous systems and applications is described. Systems and methods are disclosed that may use image feature correspondences between camera images along with an assumption that image features are locally planar to determine parameters for calibrating an image sensor with a LiDAR sensor and/or another image sensor. In some examples, an optimization problem is constructed that attempts to minimize a geometric loss function, where the geometric loss function encodes the notion that corresponding image features are views of a same point on a locally planar surface (e.g., a surfel or mesh) that is constructed from LiDAR data generated using a LiDAR sensor. In some examples, performing such processes to determine the calibration parameters may remove structure estimation from the optimization problem.