V2I-Calib++: A Multi-terminal Spatial Calibration Approach in Urban Intersections for Collaborative Perception

Urban intersections, dense with pedestrian and vehicular traffic and compounded by GPS signal obstructions from high-rise buildings, are among the most challenging areas in urban traffic systems. Traditional single-vehicle intelligence systems often perform poorly in such environments due to a lack of global traffic flow information and the ability to respond to unexpected events. Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology, through real-time communication between vehicles (V2V) and vehicles to infrastructure (V2I), offers a robust solution. However, practical applications still face numerous challenges. Calibration among heterogeneous vehicle and infrastructure endpoints in multi-end LiDAR systems is crucial for ensuring the accuracy and consistency of perception system data. Most existing multi-end calibration methods rely on initial calibration values provided by positioning systems, but the instability of GPS signals due to high buildings in urban canyons poses severe challenges to these methods. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel multi-end LiDAR system calibration method that does not require positioning priors to determine initial external parameters and meets real-time requirements. Our method introduces an innovative multi-end perception object association technique, utilizing a new Overall Distance metric (oDist) to measure the spatial association between perception objects, and effectively combines global consistency search algorithms with optimal transport theory. By this means, we can extract co-observed targets from object association results for further external parameter computation and optimization. Extensive comparative and ablation experiments conducted on the simulated dataset V2X-Sim and the real dataset DAIR-V2X confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of our method. The code for this method can be accessed at: \url{https://github.com/MassimoQu/v2i-calib}.

V2I-Calib: A Novel Calibration Approach for Collaborative Vehicle and Infrastructure LiDAR Systems

Cooperative vehicle and infrastructure LiDAR systems hold great potential, yet their implementation faces numerous challenges. Calibration of LiDAR systems across heterogeneous vehicle and infrastructure endpoints is a critical step to ensure the accuracy and consistency of perception system data, necessitating calibration methods that are real-time and stable. To this end, this paper introduces a novel calibration method for cooperative vehicle and road infrastructure LiDAR systems, which exploits spatial association information between detection boxes. The method centers around a novel Overall IoU metric that reflects the correlation of targets between vehicle and infrastructure, enabling real-time monitoring of calibration results. We search for common matching boxes between vehicle and infrastructure nodes by constructing an affinity matrix. Subsequently, these matching boxes undergo extrinsic parameter computation and optimization. Comparative and ablation experiments on the DAIR-V2X dataset confirm the superiority of our method. To better reflect the differences in calibration results, we have categorized the calibration tasks on the DAIR-V2X dataset based on their level of difficulty, enriching the dataset's utility for future research. Our project is available at https://github.com/MassimoQu/v2i-calib .

Cooperative Visual-LiDAR Extrinsic Calibration Technology for Intersection Vehicle-Infrastructure: A review

In the typical urban intersection scenario, both vehicles and infrastructures are equipped with visual and LiDAR sensors. By successfully integrating the data from vehicle-side and road monitoring devices, a more comprehensive and accurate environmental perception and information acquisition can be achieved. The Calibration of sensors, as an essential component of autonomous driving technology, has consistently drawn significant attention. Particularly in scenarios involving multiple sensors collaboratively perceiving and addressing localization challenges, the requirement for inter-sensor calibration becomes crucial. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of the concept of multi-end cooperation, where infrastructure captures and transmits surrounding environment information to vehicles, bolstering their perception capabilities while mitigating costs. However, this also poses technical complexities, underscoring the pressing need for diverse end calibration. Camera and LiDAR, the bedrock sensors in autonomous driving, exhibit expansive applicability. This paper comprehensively examines and analyzes the calibration of multi-end camera-LiDAR setups from vehicle, roadside, and vehicle-road cooperation perspectives, outlining their relevant applications and profound significance. Concluding with a summary, we present our future-oriented ideas and hypotheses.