Camera-to-LiDAR calibration and validation

An automatic calibration and validation process to estimate and evaluate the accuracy of extrinsic parameters of a camera-to-LiDAR coordinate transformation. The method comprising, receiving from a Lidar sensor of a vehicle a point could including points from a calibration target, receiving a camera image from a camera on the vehicle which includes the calibration target. The method extracts features of the calibration targets from the lidar points and the camera image and associates the extracted features to determine target matching features. Based on the matching features coordinate transformation parameters are determined between the lidar coordinates and the camera coordinates. Receiving second lidar data and a second image and using the estimated coordinate transformation to project the lidar data onto the image. An upper limit of the accuracy of the parameters of the coordinate transformation is determined. Further determining whether a specified percentage of the lidar points in the second set lie within the validation targets in the second image in accordance with the determined upper limit of the accuracy. If a sufficient percentage of points lie on the target in the image the estimated parameters are considered to be valid.