Calibration of Rotating 2D Laser Range Finder Using Circular Path on Plane Constraints

Rotating a 2D laser range finder is a common way to obtain the 3D data of a scene. In the real system, the rotation axis is not always coincide with the sensor's axis. Due to this matter, it is important to know the rotation axis of a rotating 2D laser range finder system to obtains an accurate 3D measurement. In this paper, a method for determining the rotational axis and its relation to the sensor's position is presented. The rotational axis is approximated by analyzing the surface normal of several sensor's positions with different rotation angle. The sensor's positions are projected to the rotational plane to obtain a circular path. The circular path is approximated using a circular fitting method. A comprehensive analysis from a simulation system is presented in this paper to show the performance of the proposed calibration method.