Title: Calibration and registration for precise surface reconstruction with Time-Of-Flight cameras

Authors: Stefan Fuchs, Stefan May

Addresses: DLR, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Oberpfaffenhofen, 82234 Wessling, Germany. ' Fraunhofer Institut, Intelligente Analyse- und Informationssysteme, Informationssysteme Schloss Birlinghoven 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany

Abstract: This paper presents a method for precise surface reconstruction with Time-Of-Flight (TOF) cameras. A novel calibration approach, which simplifies the calibration task and doubles the camera|s precision is developed and compared to current calibration methods. Remaining errors are tackled by applying filter and error distributing methods. Thus, a reference object is circumferentially reconstructed with an overall mean precision of approximately 3 mm in translation and 3° in rotation. The presented way of quantification for an achievable reconstruction precision with TOF cameras discloses the potential of localising and grasping objects with robot manipulators. This is a major criteria for the potential analysis of this sensor technology in robotics, which is first demonstrated within this work.

Keywords: calibration; surface reconstruction; time-of-flight cameras; TOF cameras; robot manipulators; robot sensors; robot grasping; object localisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2008.021290

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2008 Vol.5 No.3/4, pp.274 - 284

Published online: 18 Nov 2008 *

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