The stereo camera system for the robot working in hazardous environments should be calibrated on site because it is continuously influenced by environmental factors, for example, vibration and temperature variation and so on, during the tasks. To calibrate the stereo camera, two kinds of method, i.e, self-calibration method and classical method, have been developed. Although many self-calibration methods have been developed recently, there is no robust and fully automatic self-calibration method, up to now. Thus, the stereo camera in hazardous environments should be calibrated with classical calibration method. However, there are two problems in this method for using in hazardous environments. One is that human interaction is required to place the calibration apparatus in camera visibility region. The other is that the calibration reults are only valid for the volume around the position where the calibration apparatus was placed. To overcome these two problems, this dissertation suggests a new calibration method using mirror. Also, to obtain fast and stable calibration results, light grid is suggested as calibration apparatus. Experimental results show the feasiblity of the proposed methods.
