The Calibration of Single Beam Distance Sensors based on Machine Learning Methods

Smart cities require the use of many different types of sensors to make the communication, and distance sensors are one of the most commonly used elements in transportation systems and related infrastructures. The introduction of increasingly advanced autonomous systems in many areas of smart cities requires high measurement precision of the sensors used. High precision is essential for proper operation, long-term use, and safety in machine-to-machine or machine-to-human interactions. This paper presents a comparison of the accuracy of distance measurements for two commercially available single-beam LiDARs and two ultrasonic sensors. The aim of the research was to develop a calibration method in order to improve the accuracy of distance sensors. Based on the collected distance measurements, the sensors were calibrated using selected machine learning algorithms. The results of the experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed calibration methods, which yield an average mean absolute error (MAE) of 1.76 E-05 meters (m) and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.33 E-04 m for the tested sensors.