A new reliable boresight calibration method for mobile laser scanning applications

Abstract

This paper presents a new INS-LiDAR bore-sighting parameters calibration method that differs from traditional methods on two main aspects. First, the method is static, which avoids being affected by GPS errors and enables the extraction of scanlines. For terrestrial laser scanning, this aspect is extremely important since ranges are short and the GPS errors are the first source of error during the calibration process. Second, the method is based on a rigorous mathematical model, which allows providing reliable boresight quality factors. After presenting the boresight determination problem, this paper will introduce the existing calibration procedures. Then, it will describe the new procedure and explain how it overcomes the limitations of the traditional approaches. Finally, some results from both simulations and real datasets are presented to illustrate our approach.