A Minimum Variance Calibration Algorithm for Pan-Tilt Robotic Cameras in Natural Environments Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • A new generation of inexpensive robotic pan-tilt cameras can maintain high-resolution panoramic displays of natural environments. However, the pan-tilt mechanisms are imprecise: small errors can produce large errors in the panoramic display. It is thus important to accurately estimate pan-tilt values. We present a new calibration algorithm that does not rely on calibration markers or fixed orthogonal edges which are rarely available in natural scenes. Our calibration algorithm uses image variance density to optimally estimate camera pan and tilt values by incrementally refining image registration using overlapping images from prior frames. Experiments suggest that the new calibration algorithm can reduce calibration error by 81%. In a companion paper [19], we present a new image registration algorithm based on spherical projection that optimally aligns the resulting frames. 2006 IEEE.

name of conference

  • Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006.

published proceedings

  • Proceedings 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2006. ICRA 2006.

author list (cited authors)

  • Song, D., Qin, N. i., & Goldberg, K.

citation count

  • 9

complete list of authors

  • Song, Dezhen||Qin, Ni||Goldberg, Ken

publication date

  • January 2006