Static Calibration and Analysis of the Velodyne HDL-64E S2 for High Accuracy Mobile Scanning

Abstract: The static calibration and analysis of the Velodyne HDL-64E S2 scanning LiDAR system is presented and analyzed. The mathematical model for measurements for the HDL-64E S2 scanner is derived and discussed. A planar feature based least squares adjustment approach is presented and utilized in a minimally constrained network in order to derive an optimal solution for the laser’s internal calibration parameters. Finally, the results of the adjustment along with a detailed examination of the adjustment residuals are given. A three-fold improvement in the planar misclosure residual RMSE over the standard factory calibration model was achieved by the proposed calibration. Results also suggest that there may still be some unmodelled distortions in the range measurements from the scanner. However, despite this, the overall precision of the adjusted laser scanner data appears to make it a viable choice for high accuracy mobile scanning applications.