CALIBRATION AND STABILITY ANALYSIS OF THE VLP-16 LASER SCANNER
We report on a calibration and stability analysis of the Velodyne VLP-16 LiDAR scanner. The sensor is evaluated for long-term stability, geometric calibration and the effect of temperature variations. To generalize the results, three separate VLP-16 sensors were examined. The results and conclusions...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016-03-01
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| Series: | The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences |
| Online Access: | http://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XL-3-W4/55/2016/isprs-archives-XL-3-W4-55-2016.pdf |
| Summary: | We report on a calibration and stability analysis of the Velodyne VLP-16 LiDAR scanner. The sensor is evaluated for long-term
stability, geometric calibration and the effect of temperature variations. To generalize the results, three separate VLP-16 sensors
were examined. The results and conclusions from the analysis of each of the individual sensors was similar. We found that the
VLP-16 showed a consistent level of performance, in terms of range bias and noise level over the tested temperature range from 0–40
°C. A geometric calibration was able to marginally improve the accuracy of the VLP-16 point cloud (by approximately 20%) for a
single collection, however the temporal stability of the geometric calibration negated this accuracy improvement. Overall, it was
found that there is some long-term walk in the ranging observations from individual lasers within the VLP-16, which likely causes
the instability in the determination of geometric calibration parameters. However, despite this range walk, the point cloud delivered
from the VLP-16 sensors tested showed an accuracy level within the manufacturer specifications of 3 cm RMSE, with an overall
estimated RMSE of range residuals between 22 mm and 27 mm. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1750 2194-9034 |