Finding Timestamp Offsets for a Multi-Sensor System Using Sensor Observations

Abstract

Multi-sensor systems are widely used for robotics applications. While additional sensors can increase the accuracy and robustness of the solution, it is inevitable to synchronize them in order to rely on the results. For our multi-sensor system consisting of an actuated laser scanner, its motor and a camera we assume that the timestamps are only delayed by a constant offset. We propose two different approaches to calculate timestamp offsets from laser scanner to motor, one of which is additionally capable of determining the timestamp offset between laser scanner and camera. Both approaches use parts of a SLAM algorithm but apply different criteria to find an appropriate solution. Our experiments show that we are able to determine timestamp offsets with a reasonable accuracy. Furthermore, our experiments exhibit the significance of a proper synchronization for a multi-sensor system.

Publication
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing (PE&RS)
Raphael Voges
Raphael Voges
Doctor in Robotics

My research interests include error modeling, sensor fusion, SLAM, state estimation and AI in the context of autonomous driving.

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