Camera calibration parameters: An Estimation for navigation of Micro Aerial Vehicle

Abstract

Vision-based algorithm based on camera calibration method is proposed in this paper to compute the Intrinsic and Extrinsic parameters of the camera. CMOS camera sensor module is mounted on the Micro Aerial Vehicle to acquire the image frames of the planar pattern with an image resolution of 480x640 pixels. The Intrinsic parameters, namely, Focal length, Principal point, Skew and Distortion coefficients were calculated for the sequence of image frames with a planar pattern. The main objective is to calibrate the camera in real time for navigation of a micro aerial vehicle and determine the heading angle of the reference axis. Using camera calibration technique, the intrinsic parameters of the camera is computed. Once the intrinsic parameters are known, the extrinsic parameters of the camera are estimated in the successive image frames acquired using cmos camera sensor module. Planar pattern is used for the real time camera calibration. Using the rotational and translational vector of the camera, the rotational and translational motion of micro aerial vehicle can be estimated. The heading results obtained with the camera calibration method was validated using Arduino based MPU6050 sensor module.