Sensor Calibration Tools

Calibration tools for sensors used in autonomous driving and robotics (camera, lidar, and radar).

Table of contents

• Sensor Calibration Tools
  • Table of contents
  • Installation
    • Requirements
    • Installation alongside autoware
    • Standalone installation (for non-autoware users)
    • Standalone installation using Docker (for non-autoware users)
  • Available tools
    • Extrinsic calibration tools
    • Intrinsic calibration tools
  • Design
    • Calibrator node
    • Sensor calibration manager
      • Projects and calibrators
      • Calibrator interface
      • Launch files
      • Launching the sensor calibration manager
    • Preferences
  • Integration
    • Using your vehicle/robot
    • Create a new project
    • Integrate a new calibrator

Installation

Requirements

• Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04
• ROS 2 Humble / Jazzy

Installation alongside autoware

After installing autoware (please see source-installation page), execute the following commands:

cd autoware
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tier4/CalibrationTools/tier4/universe/calibration_tools_autoware.repos
vcs import src < calibration_tools_autoware.repos
rosdep install -y --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro $ROS_DISTRO
colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Standalone installation (for non-autoware users)

The sensor calibration tools are usually used as part of the autoware ecosystem. However, they can also be used for projects outside autoware, or even outside autonomous driving. Note: due to its use in autoware, even if it is possible to use the sensor calibration tools independently, due to some light dependencies, parts of autoware still need to be downloaded, even if they are not all compiled.

The following commands present an example of how to install the sensor calibration tools and their dependencies assuming you have a ROS2 workspace called workspace (if the workspace is new, the user must also create the src directory inside the workspace):

# Install vcs (if needed, follow the instructions from https://github.com/dirk-thomas/vcstool)
sudo apt-get install python3-vcstool

# Download the calibration tools and its dependencies
cd workspace
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tier4/CalibrationTools/tier4/universe/calibration_tools_standalone.repos
vcs import src < calibration_tools_standalone.repos

# Install all the dependencies from rosdep
rosdep install -y --from-paths `colcon list --packages-up-to sensor_calibration_tools -p` --ignore-src

# Build the sensor calibration tools. sensor_calibration_tools is a meta package that guarantees that only the related packages are compiled
colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --packages-up-to sensor_calibration_tools

Standalone installation using Docker (for non-autoware users)

With a similar motivation to that of the previous Section, in some cases, a native build is not possible nor convenient. To accommodate those situations, we also offer the sensor calibration tools as a docker image:

```bash

Build

export ROS_DISTRO=humble # for ROS 2 Humble export ROS_DISTRO=jazzy # for ROS 2 Jazzy

DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build –ssh default -t ghcr.io/tier4/sensor-calibration-tools:$ROS_DISTRO -f docker/Dockerfile –build-arg ROS_DISTRO=$ROS_DISTRO ..

Run - Modify if needed

docker run –gpus all –net=host -e ROS_DOMAIN_ID=$ROS_DOMAIN_ID -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix –device=/dev/dri:/dev/dri -it ghcr.io/tier4/sensor-calibration-tools:${ROS_DISTRO} /bin/bash

If user encounters issues like “Authorization required”, use one of the alternatives below.

Solution 1 (Not recommended):

xhost +local:docker

Solution 2:

touch /tmp/.docker.xauth chmod a+r /tmp/.docker.xauth

docker run –gpus all –net=host
-e ROS_DOMAIN_ID=$ROS_DOMAIN_ID
-e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY
-e XAUTHORITY=/tmp/.docker.xauth
-v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix
-v /tmp/.docker.xauth:/tmp/.docker.xauth \

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