Adaptive Levenberg-Marquardt optimization for accurate calibration of multi-camera systems with low overlap fields of view

To acquire situational awareness of the surroundings，pilot assistance systems require high-precision camera calibration and hazardous target position measurement in large-scale scenes with low overlap. To address the issues such as insufficient calibration accuracy in existing low-overlap multi-camera systems and reduced visual measurement accuracy due to distortion，this paper proposes a precise multi-camera calibration method based on adaptive Levenberg-Marquardt optimization. First，a binocular camera calibration model is established using a rigid composite target. By employing a rigidly fixed composite target and an auxiliary camera，the transformation relationship between the two cameras is derived. Then，an adaptive Levenberg-Marquardt optimization algorithm is introduced，which uses the reprojection error of the target’s feature points as the objective function. An iterative optimization method with adaptive step sizes is utilized to optimize the transformation matrix between the binocular cameras，thereby enhancing calibration accuracy. Finally，a co-centric cylindrical projection of multi-camera images is performed to reduce target parallax and improve the measurement accuracy of the stitched panoramic view. Calibration and measurement experiments demonstrate that the proposed method effectively addresses the challenges of precise camera calibration and hazardous target position measurement in low-overlapping fields of view，reducing the reprojection error by 10% and the measurement error by 13%. © 2025 Chinese Society of Astronautics. All rights reserved.