Easy auto-calibration of sensors on a vehicle equipped with multiple 2D-LIDARs and cameras

In this paper, we propose to calibrate a vehicle equipped with several 2D-LIDARs and cameras. Our goal is to offer a method which is easy to use with very little manual intervention and which doesn't need a special calibration target. Sensor data is recorded while the vehicle is driven along a trajectory in a man made environment with vertical walls. The first step is a classical autocalibration approach based on visual SLAM and bundle adjustment is used to recover the cameras internal and external parameters. The second step which is the main contribution of the paper, is a novel optimisation algorithm to compute the external parameters of the LIDAR. We present the methodology in its entirety because the user has to do a single data acquisition for camera and LIDAR calibration. Our approach is validated by real experimental results.