A new algorithm for calibrating a combined camera and IMU sensor unit

This paper is concerned with the problem of estimating the relative translation and orientation between an inertial measurement unit and a camera which are rigidly connected. The key is to realise that this problem is in fact an instance of a standard problem within the area of system identification, referred to as a gray-box problem. We propose a new algorithm for estimating the relative translation and orientation, which does not require any additional hardware, except a piece of paper with a checkerboard pattern on it. Furthermore, covariance expressions are provided for all involved estimates. The experimental results shows that the method works well in practice.