TY - JOUR

T1 - Timestamp Offset Determination Between an Actuated Laser Scanner and its Corresponding Motor

AU - Voges, Raphael

AU - Wieghardt, Christian S.

AU - Wagner, Bernardo

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2017/5/30

Y1 - 2017/5/30

N2 - Motor actuated 2D laser scanners are key sensors for many robotics applications that need wide ranging but low cost 3D data. There exist many approaches on how to build a 3D laser scanner using this technique, but they often lack proper synchronization for the timestamps of the actuator and the laser scanner. However, to transform the measurement points into three-dimensional space an appropriate synchronization is mandatory. Thus, we propose two different approaches to accomplish the goal of calculating timestamp offsets between laser scanner and motor prior to and after data acquisition. Both approaches use parts of a SLAM algorithm but apply different criteria to find an appropriate solution. While the approach for offset calculation prior to data acquisition exploits the fact that the SLAM algorithm should not register motion for a stationary system, the approach for offset calculation after data acquisition evaluates the perceived clarity of a point cloud created by the SLAM algorithm. Our experiments show that both approaches yield the same results although operating independently on different data, which demonstrates that the results reflect reality with a high probability. Furthermore, our experiments exhibit the significance of a proper synchronization between laser scanner and actuator.

AB - Motor actuated 2D laser scanners are key sensors for many robotics applications that need wide ranging but low cost 3D data. There exist many approaches on how to build a 3D laser scanner using this technique, but they often lack proper synchronization for the timestamps of the actuator and the laser scanner. However, to transform the measurement points into three-dimensional space an appropriate synchronization is mandatory. Thus, we propose two different approaches to accomplish the goal of calculating timestamp offsets between laser scanner and motor prior to and after data acquisition. Both approaches use parts of a SLAM algorithm but apply different criteria to find an appropriate solution. While the approach for offset calculation prior to data acquisition exploits the fact that the SLAM algorithm should not register motion for a stationary system, the approach for offset calculation after data acquisition evaluates the perceived clarity of a point cloud created by the SLAM algorithm. Our experiments show that both approaches yield the same results although operating independently on different data, which demonstrates that the results reflect reality with a high probability. Furthermore, our experiments exhibit the significance of a proper synchronization between laser scanner and actuator.

KW - 3D Perception

KW - Actuated lidar

KW - Laser Range Finder

KW - Rotating laser

KW - SLAM

KW - Sensor Synchronization

KW - Timestamp Offsets

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85044544515&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5194/isprs-annals-IV-1-W1-99-2017

DO - 10.5194/isprs-annals-IV-1-W1-99-2017

M3 - Conference article

VL - 4

SP - 99

EP - 106

JO - ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences

JF - ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences

SN - 2194-9042

IS - 1W1

ER -