ACCURACY ASSESSMENT AND CALIBRATION OF LOW-COST AUTONOMOUS LIDAR SENSORS

A number of low-cost, small form factor, high resolution lidar sensors have recently been commercialized in an effort to fill the growing needs for lidar sensors on autonomous vehicles. These lidar sensors often report performance as range precision and angular accuracy, which are insufficient to characterize the overall quality of the point clouds returned by these sensors. Herein, a detailed geometric accuracy analysis of two representative autonomous sensors, the Ouster OSI-64 and the Livox Mid-40, is presented. The scanners were analyzed through a rigorous least squares adjustment of data from the two sensors using planar surface constraints. The analysis attempts to elucidate the overall point cloud accuracy and presence of systematic errors for the sensors over medium (