Towards the influence of a car windshield on depth calculation with a stereo camera system

Abstract

Stereo camera systems in cars are often used to estimate the distance of other road users from the car. This information is important to improve road safety. Such camera systems are typically mounted behind the windshield of the car. In this contribution, the influence of the windshield on the estimated distance values is analyzed. An offline stereo camera calibration is performed with a moving planar calibration target. In a standard procedure bundle adjustment, the relative orientation of the cameras is estimated. The calibration is performed for the identical stereo camera system with and without a windshield in between. The base lengths are derived from the relative orientation in both cases and are compared. Distance values are calculated and analyzed. It can be shown, that the difference of the base length values in the two cases is highly significant. Resulting effects on the distance calculation up to a half meter occur.