Calibration of a multiple axes 3-D laser scanning system consisting of robot, portable laser scanner and turntable

A multiple axes 3-D laser scanning system consisting of a portable 3-D laser scanner, a industrial robot and a turntable is demonstrated. By using a criterion sphere, a robot tool center point (TCP) calibration approach is proposed to calibrate the relation between the laser 3-D scanner and the robot end-effector. In this approach, two different translational motions of robot are first made to determine the rotation part, and then at least three different rotational motions are made to determine the translation part. Meanwhile, by using the criterion sphere, a turntable approach is proposed to calibrate the pose of the turntable relative to the robot. In this approach, several rotational angles of turntable and two different heights of the sphere are made to determine the rotational axis of turntable. Experiment is performed on a portable laser scanner mounted on an industrial robot ABB IRB4400 with a turntable. The experiment results show that the two proposed calibration algorithms are stable and flexible. The application of 3-D measurement is also given to demonstrate the effectiveness and stability of the multiple axes 3-D laser scanning system.     

基于大景深三维扫描系统对RAC标定法的修正

基于大景深三维扫描系统的倾斜摄像机模型,推导了新的物像关系并修正了Tsai的RAC标定法.利用修正后的RAC标定法对大景深扫描系统的摄像机进行了标定, 实验结果表明修正后的RAC标定法适用于倾斜的摄像机系统,标定准确度可以达到0.03 mm.     

三维形貌柔性测量系统标定方法及验证

为了避免机器人模型误差对三维形貌柔性测量系统手眼标定的影响,对手眼关系的标定方法进行了研究。提出了一种融合特征点拟合的手眼标定方法。将三维形貌扫描仪安装在工业机器人末端搭建三维形貌柔性测量系统。标定时,首先利用激光跟踪仪对工业机器人末端法兰盘坐标系进行测量,得到两者转换关系;然后,利用三维形貌扫描仪和激光跟踪仪对空间固定的特征点组进行测量,利用特征点约束和基于罗德里格矩阵的算法求解两者转换关系即可间接地求解出手眼关系。基于ATOS三维扫描仪、安川HP20D机器人和API公司生产的激光跟踪仪进行了手眼标定实验,并进行了精度验证。结果表明:标定后的三维形貌柔性测量系统,其重复性测量精度(3σ)不超过0.1 mm,长度测量精度的均方根误差在0.2 mm以内,点云拼接精度优于±0.7 mm。该方法有效避免了传统手眼标定过程中会引入机器人模型误差的问题,在求解手眼关系解时采用了线性的解法,并且适用于三维形貌柔性测量系统。     

Calibration procedure for 3D measurement systems using two cameras and a laser line

In order to ensure the precision of the measurement of complex 3D object surfaces using non-contact laser scanning systems, a novel stereo vision calibration procedure based on a laser line projection plane is presented. This calibration procedure can also be used in measurement systems based on a single camera and a laser line projection. This procedure, while using only laser-coplanar points, is oriented towards laser line detection and allows the matching of two images on the laser projection plane without the use of a rigid motion equation. These features make this procedure very precise, simple and, consequently, easier to implement.     

3D laser scanner system using high dynamic range imaging

Because of its high measuring speed, moderate accuracy, low cost and robustness in the industrial field, 3D laser scanning has been widely used in a variety of applications. However, the measurement of a 3D profile of a high dynamic range (HDR) brightness surface such as a partially highlighted object or a partial specular reflection remains one of the most challenging problems. This difficulty has limited the adoption of such scanner systems. In this paper, an optical imaging system based on a high-resolution liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) device and an image sensor (CCD or CMOS) was built to adjust the image's brightness pixel by pixel as required. The radiance value of the image captured by the image sensor is constrained to lie within the dynamic range of the sensor after an adaptive algorithm of pixel mapping between the LCoS mask plane and image plane through the HDR imaging system is added. Thus, an HDR image was reconstructed by the LCoS mask and the CCD image on this system. The significant difference between the proposed system and a traditional 3D laser scanner system is that the HDR image was used to calibrate and calculate the 3D profile coordinate. Experimental results show that HDR imaging can enhance 3D laser scanner system environmental adaptability and improve the accuracy of 3D profile measurement.     

An experimental evaluation method for the performance of a laser line scanning system with multiple sensors

Laser line scanning 3D digitising systems have a wide range of applications. Their working performance is mainly determined by the system calibration procedure and is also affected by the working conditions, CCD camera imperfections, and object surface optical characteristics. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation of working performance is necessary before and during use. This study proposes an experimental method for the performance evaluation of a laser line scanner (LLS) with 8 scanning sensors developed in our laboratory. This method first obtains the dense point clouds of standard parts composed of disks, cylinders, and squares. Next, the single-layer point clouds located in horizontal planes of different heights are fitted using the least squares method to obtain the enclosed contours S. Three parameters, namely, the standard deviation of the distance distribution between points and S, the mean distance of the distance distribution, and the shape feature sizes, are used to evaluate the performance. The proposed method evaluates both the scanner as a whole and each scanning sensor. Using this method, more comprehensive information can be acquired to evaluate the scanner performance. The experimental results show that the absolute dimension size error and relative error are less than 5 mm and 3%, respectively, and the relative shape error is less than 2%; therefore, the evaluated LLS system can meet the requirements for human anthropometry applications. Although each scanning sensor has different random and systematic error, these errors are the function of measurement depth. These conclusions are helpful for the further use of this scanner system and can be utilised to optimise this LLS system further.     

激光片光三维传感中降低散斑影响的新方法

提出一种激光片光三维传感中降低散斑影响的新方法,片光面内扫描合成孔径法。通过向被测物体表面投射面内扫描的片状激光束,产生空间变化的动态散斑光场,这样的光场在成像透镜光瞳平面上的移动,其时间平均效果等效于利用了一个大的“合成孔径”,降低了散斑的影响,明显地提高了测量精度。文中给出了合成孔径的理论分析和三维面形测量的实验结果。     

360°连续扫描的便携式三维激光雷达设计与开发

针对三维激光雷达在国内有巨大的应用市场,而国外商业三维激光雷达十分昂贵的现状,开发了一种360°连续扫描的便携式三维激光雷达系统。采用一个二维激光扫描仪与高精度转台连接,通过步进电机控制形成三维激光扫描。在分析系统误差来源的基础上,提出了系统误差校正方法,给出了三维坐标精确计算公式。实验结果表明,系统测量精度高,数据质量好。系统作用距离80 m,测距精度可达6 mm,测量速度每秒7256点,可满足室内室外大规模场景三维数据快速获取的需求,而成本仅是国外同类商业三维激光雷达价格的四分之一左右,且重量轻体积小,携带方便。     

Non-contact scanning measurement utilizing a space mapping method

In this study, a novel approach to a measuring methodology and calibration method for an optical non-contact scanning probe system is proposed and verified by experiments. The optical probe consists of a line laser diode and two charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras and is placed on a computer numerical control (CNC) machine to measure the workpiece profiles. A space mapping method using the least-squares algorithm is presented for the probe calibration and profile measurement. This method provides a simple and accurate calculation of the relationship between the real space plane and its related image space plane in a CCD camera. A transparent grid with regularly spaced nodal points is used to construct the space mapping function. The space coordinate of an object can be obtained from its image in the CCD camera via the mapping function. The measured profile data are smoothed by the B-spline blending function and can be transferred to a CAD/CAM package for industrial applications. Experimental results show that this technique can determine the 3-D profile of an object with an accuracy of 60 μm.     

平顶线结构光的中心检测算法及光刀平面标定

针对传统线结构光光刀平面标定方法测量精度不高,应用范围小的问题,提出基于平面标靶的线结构光系统光刀平面标定,对无激光的标靶图片进行迭代摄像机标定,有激光的标靶图片进行光刀平面标定.提出光强符合均匀分布的平顶激光检测中心算法,将平顶激光建模为矩形的台阶函数,估计背景亮度和前景亮度,确定亮条纹宽度,再将窗口内的有效像素参与重心计算,得到光条纹中心.用该算法对不同噪声及不同量块的图片进行处理,结果表明,处理后图像的均方根误差分别在0.149pixel和0.176pixel内,表明该算法抗噪声能力强、精度高.用该算法提取光条中心,计算光条在标靶上的位置,根据至少两个姿态下的光条中心三维点,基于最小二乘法拟合光刀平面.通过迭代摄像机标定和光刀平面标定,利用三角测量法,在立体视觉模型下获取物体的三维点云数据.实验测量两个距离为100.5mm的标准球,相机与标准球距离为500mm,比较两球心距离与标准距离,测得平均误差为0.236mm.表明平顶激光检测中心算法切实可行,光刀平面标定方法基本满足要求.     

Calibration procedure for a laser triangulation scanner with uncertainty evaluation

Most of low cost 3D scanning devices that are nowadays available on the market are sold without a user calibration procedure to correct measurement errors related to changes in environmental conditions. In addition, there is no specific international standard defining a procedure to check the performance of a 3D scanner along time. This paper aims at detailing a thorough methodology to calibrate a 3D scanner and assess its measurement uncertainty. The proposed procedure is based on the use of a reference ball plate and applied to a triangulation laser scanner. Experimental results show that the metrological performance of the instrument can be greatly improved by the application of the calibration procedure that corrects systematic errors and reduces the device's measurement uncertainty.     

A flexible new three-dimensional measurement technique by projected fringe pattern

Aimed at the problems of inferior precision and bad maneuverability for three-dimensional (3D) measurement by projected fringe pattern, a flexible new 3D technique for performing system calibration and measuring was proposed. First, we analyzed the principle of conventional 3D measurement with projected fringe pattern, and pointed out the shortcoming of measurement system. Then, the CCD camera calibration technique is analyzed and we set up the perspective projection model which transforms the computer image coordinate to 3D world coordinate, and we get the coordinate of the CCD camera image lens. Third, the position of projection lens optical center can be obtained using the above model. At last, some experiment results presented show that this technique is more simple and robust in engineering than conventional measurement method.     

利用激光三角测距法提高三维面型检测精度的方法

本文首先介绍了根据激光三角测距原理并采用片光照明、面阵ＣＣＤ接收的三维面形检测原理，其优点在于物面相对于测量头仅需一个方向移动即可完成二维扫描，使测量系统结构简单、便于控制。其次分析了影响其测量精度的几个主要因素，即散斑噪声、接收器件本身的分辨率、投影片光束的宽度与稳定性。散斑噪声造成了投影光斑的抖动，ＣＣＤ的分辨率限制了测量系统的分辨率，而片光束的质量影响着ＣＣＤ光敏面上像斑的准确定位。针对其各自的特点给出了相应的解决途径。     

Application and assessment of laser Doppler velocimetry for underwater acoustic measurements

The majority of traditional methods for making underwater acoustic pressure measurements involve placing all or part of a measurement transducer in the acoustic field. A variety of optical metrology techniques have been developed in an attempt to reduce or remove any perturbing effects. An example of this is the use of laser interferometry which has been developed as the primary method of calibrating hydrophones in the frequency range - at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). This technique involves suspending a thin Mylar pellicle in the acoustic field and recording the displacement of the pellicle surface using a Michelson Interferometer. This study details a comparison of a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) with the NPL Laser Interferometer, which gives a good correlation where agreement is within approximately 4% and 7% for two different power levels from a plane piston transducer and within 2.5% and 1% for the same power levels from a plane piston transducer. A novel, non-perturbing method of recording temporally resolved acoustic pressure distributions in water using an LDV is also described. The technique is shown to benefit from the consistent frequency response of the LDV detection system, such that the measured output resembles the drive voltage input to the transducer more closely than a similar hydrophone measurement. For the experimental arrangement described, the LDV system is shown to be sensitive to minimum pressure amplitudes of nominally .     

An absolute phase to world coordinates method for the defocusing structured light shape measurement system

This paper proposes a flexible calibration method for the defocusing structured light three-dimensional (3D) imaging system. Neither a high accuracy translation stage nor the parameters of the projector is required. Therefore the method is more flexible in many practical applications. World coordinates for calibration are obtained based on the method of coordinates from known plane. The monotonic nonlinear relationships between the absolute phase and each world coordinate have been investigated. Different from other methods, in our method, the 3D shape is directly recovered by the absolute phase to world coordinates method. Experimental results show that, when polynomial curve fitting methods are used, the root-mean-squared (RMS) error for the flat plate reconstruction is less than 0.12 mm, and the measurement error of 3D points is less than −0.34%. Furthermore, when comparing the measurement results of our method with the method of coordinates from known plane based on camera calibration, the relative error is less than −0.05%. Therefore, camera calibration is considered as the major error source.     

A half-moment model for radiative transfer in a 3D gray medium and its reduction to a moment model for hot, opaque sources

We present in this paper a new 3D half-moment model for radiative transfer in a gray medium, called the model, which uses maximum entropy closure. This model is a generalization to 3D of the 1D version recently proposed in (J. Comp. Phys. 180 (2002) 584). The direction space Ω is divided into two pieces, Ω⁺ and Ω^-, in a dynamical way by the plane perpendicular to the total radiative flux, and the half moments are defined from these subspaces. The model closure and the integrations of the radiative transfer equation performed on the moving Ω^± spaces are detailed. 1D planar results, which have motivated the extension of the model of (J. Comp. Phys. 180 (2002) 584) to multi-dimensions, are shown. These results are very good. The model is thereafter derived for 3D spherically symmetric geometry, where the correctness of the non-trivial border terms can be checked. Two 3D spherically symmetric problems are numerically solved in order to show the accuracy of the closure and the role of the border terms. Once again, compared to the solution obtained with a ray tracing solver, results are very good. From the 3D half-moment model, a new moment model, called , is derived for the particular case of a 3D hot and opaque source radiating into a cold medium, for applications such as simulations of stellar atmospheres and fires. Two-dimensional numerical results are presented and compared to those obtained solving the RTE and with other moment models. They demonstrate the very good accuracy of the model, its good convergence properties, and better prediction compared to all other existing moment models in its domain of applicability.     

Measurements of diffuse backscattering Mueller matrices of turbid media

We report on the development of a method that records spatially dependent intensity patterns of polarized light that arise from illuminating a turbid media with a polarized laser beam and being diffusely backscattered. Our technique employs polarized light from a He-Ne laser () which is focused onto the surface of the scattering medium. A surface area of approximately 2×2 cm centered on the light input point is imaged through polarization analysis optics onto a CCD camera. The Mueller matrix is reconstructed by 49 intensity measurements with various orientations of polarizer and analyzer. The measured Mueller matrix of polystyrene spheres was compared with the theory result of incoherent scattering of light by spheres. The experimental and theory results are in excellent agreement. It appears that the azimuthal patterns of the Mueller matrix are determined by the symmetry of the turbid media.     

Growth of well-aligned Bi nanowire on Ag(1 1 1)

We report the fabrication of one-dimensional (1D) Bi nanowires grown on Ag(1 1 1) with average lateral width from 9 to 20 nm by physical vapor deposition in ultra high vacuum conditions. In situ low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy analyses reveal that the preferred growth of 1D Bi nanostructures is driven by the highly anisotropic bonding in the crystallographic structure of the Bi(1 1 0) plane. The Bi nanowires grow along direction and align with the directions on Ag(1 1 1). The growth of the Bi nanowires proceeds in a bilayer growth mode resulting from the layer pairing in Bi(1 1 0) which saturates the dangling bonds and lowers the total energy.