Data acquisition apparatus and method for determining pose thereof

1 . A data acquisition apparatus mounted on a vehicle, comprising:

a mounting component; and

a sensor fixed to the mounting component,

wherein the sensor is configured to scan a surrounding environment of the data acquisition apparatus at a scanning frequency as the vehicle moves on ground to obtain a sequence of point cloud data frames, and

wherein the sensor is oriented at a preset pose relative to the ground to allow a coverage of an effective field of view of the sensor on the ground to be continuous across temporally neighboring frames in the sequence of point cloud data frames;

wherein the preset pose is determined based on a preset maximum speed of the vehicle, the effective field of view, and the scanning frequency of the sensor.

2 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the preset pose comprises a mounting height of the sensor and an orientation of the sensor.

3 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the vehicle is an automobile, the mounting height is a height of the sensor relative to the ground, and a mounting inclination angle is an angle of the sensor relative to a vertical direction.

4 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the sensor is a rotating LIDAR, and the effective field of view corresponds to a central dense region of the rotating LIDAR.

5 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the sensor is a first sensor, and the data acquisition apparatus further comprises:

a second sensor configured to acquire an image of the surrounding environment of the vehicle; and

a third sensor configured to acquire a geographic location of the vehicle.

6 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the sensor is a first sensor, and the data acquisition apparatus further comprises:

a fourth sensor configured to acquire point cloud data of environment in front of the vehicle; and

a processing unit configured to determine a geographic location of the vehicle based on the point cloud data acquired by the fourth sensor.

7 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the determining the geographic location of the vehicle based on the point cloud data acquired by the fourth sensor, comprises:

determining a first geographic location of the vehicle at a first moment;

determining first point cloud data of the environment in front of the vehicle acquired by the fourth sensor at the first moment;

determining second point cloud data of environment around the vehicle acquired by the first sensor at a second moment; and

determining a second geographic location of the vehicle at the second moment based on the first geographic location by registering the first point cloud data with the second point cloud data.

8 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the determining the first geographic location of the vehicle at the first moment, comprises:

acquiring the first geographic location using a location sensor at the first moment.

9 . The data acquisition apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the fourth sensor is a forward-facing long-range LIDAR.

10 . A vehicle system, comprising a vehicle, and the data acquisition apparatus of claim 1 .

11 . A method for determining a pose of a sensor mounted on a vehicle, wherein the sensor is fixed to a mounting component mounted on the vehicle, the method comprising:

determining an effective field of view and a scanning frequency of the sensor; and

determining the pose based on a preset maximum speed of the vehicle and the effective field of view and the scanning frequency of the sensor,

wherein the sensor is configured to scan a surrounding environment of a data acquisition apparatus at the scanning frequency as the vehicle moves on ground to obtain a sequence of point cloud data frames, and

wherein the sensor is oriented at the pose relative to the ground to allow a coverage of the effective field of view of the sensor on the ground to be continuous across temporally neighboring frames in the sequence of point cloud data frames.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the pose comprises a mounting height of the sensor and a mounting inclination angle of the sensor.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the vehicle is an automobile, the mounting height is a height of the sensor relative to the ground, and the mounting inclination angle is an angle of the sensor relative to a vertical direction.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the sensor is a rotating LIDAR, and the effective field of view corresponds to a central dense region of the rotating LIDAR.

15 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the sensor is a LIDAR and has a resolution within the effective field of view greater than a preset value.