Calibration of the omnidirectional vision sensor: SYCLOP

We present a method to calibrate the omnidirectional sensor used in our laboratory, named SYCLOP (conic system for localization and perception). This system, which is able to capture a panoramic image of a 2π radian field, consists of a CCD camera and a vertically oriented conic shaped reflector. In order to have a better precision than that obtained in classical applications using this kind of sensors, we consider the importance of calibration for the whole sensor. After having briefly recalled the theoretical framework used in hard calibration, we design the different transformations made between world object, cone reflector and pictures, as well as the different types of relationship between the world, the cone, the camera and the image coordinates. Finally, we present results obtained with the SYCLOP simulator and an experiment