An Accurate Calibration Technique for 3-D Laser Stripe Sensors

Laser stripe sensors are being used in a variety of industrial applications including part inspection, process control, and robot guidance. Certain characteristics of the sensor such as standoff and field of view are likely to change from one application to the next. The paper describes an approach to laser stripe sensor calibration when the sensor is composed of off-the-shelf equipment. Sensor dimensions such as the position of the laser in relation to the camera and particular lens characteristics such as focal length and distortion are treated as unknown parameters in the calibration procedure presented here. The paper shows that high accuracy is attainable in range measurements acquired with off-the-shelf components and proper calibration.