Determining geometric error model parameters of a terrestrial laser scanner through Two-face, Length-consistency, and Network methods

Published

May 9, 2017

Author(s)

Ling Wang, Bala Muralikrishnan, Prem K. Rachakonda, Daniel S. Sawyer

Abstract

Terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) are increasingly used in large-scale manufacturing and assembly where measurement uncertainties required are on the order of few tenth of a millimeter or smaller. In order to meet these stringent requirements, systematic errors within a TLS are compensated in-situ through a process referred to as self-calibration. In the network method, numerous targets distributed in the work-volume are measured from multiple locations of the scanner to determine parameters of the scanner error model. In this paper, we propose a two-face method based on front-face and back-face measurements that can offer lower uncertainties for several model parameters. We also propose a length-consistency method to determine model parameters as a more efficient method of realizing the network method. We compare our two-face method, the length-consistency method, and the network method in terms of the uncertainties in the model parameters, and demonstrate the validity of our techniques using two-face and calibrated scale bar measurements. The clear advantage of these self-calibration methods is that reference instrument or calibrated artifacts are not required, thus significantly lowering the cost involved in the calibration process.

Citation

Measurement Science & Technology

Volume

28

Issue

6

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Terrestrial laser scanners, Self-calibration, Geometric error model, Network method, Two-face method, Uncertainty

Citation

Wang, L. , Muralikrishnan, B. , Rachakonda, P. and Sawyer, D. (2017), Determining geometric error model parameters of a terrestrial laser scanner through Two-face, Length-consistency, and Network methods, Measurement Science & Technology (Accessed October 20, 2025)