Automatic One-Shot LiDAR Alignment Inspection System Using NIR Camera

In this study, we propose an accurate automatic light detection and ranging (LiDAR) alignment inspection system designed for manufacturing environments. The proposed inspection system is a single-shot, static method that uses a target system composed of a planar target with an near infrared (NIR) camera. Each laser beam spot projected on the target surface is segmented and located by analyzing the NIR images. We also propose a method to extract and match the corresponding beam feature points from the 3-D point cloud and NIR image. The correspondence points are used to estimate an extrinsic LiDAR pose related to the target frame, which is then converted into a pose relative to the vehicle’s body. We validated the performance of the proposed system with experiments using a low-resolution LiDAR, and it exhibited an accuracy as high as 0.02° and 0.4 mm for rotation and translation alignment, respectively.