Extrinsic Camera Parameter Estimation Using Video Images and GPS Considering GPS Positioning Accuracy

This paper proposes a method for estimating extrinsic camera parameters using video images and position data acquired by GPS. In conventional methods, the accuracy of the estimated camera position largely depends on the accuracy of GPS positioning data because they assume that GPS position error is very small or normally distributed. However, the actual error of GPS positioning easily grows to the 10m level and the distribution of these errors is changed depending on satellite positions and conditions of the environment. In order to achieve more accurate camera positioning in outdoor environments, in this study, we have employed a simple assumption that true GPS position exists within a certain range from the observed GPS position and the size of the range depends on the GPS positioning accuracy. Concretely, the proposed method estimates camera parameters by minimizing an energy function that is defined by using the reprojection error and the penalty term for GPS positioning.