BACKGROUND

An autonomous vehicle (AV) may be a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating with little to no human input. The autonomous vehicle may be equipped with a variety of systems or modules for enabling it to determine its surroundings and safely navigate to target destinations. For example, an autonomous vehicle may have an integrated computing system (e.g., one or more central processing units, graphical processing units, memory, and storage) for controlling various operations of the vehicle, such as driving and navigating. To that end, the computing system may process data from one or more sensor arrays. For example, an autonomous vehicle may have optical cameras for, e.g., recognizing roads and lane markings; infrared cameras for, e.g., night vision; LiDARs for, e.g., detecting 360° surroundings; RADAR for, e.g., detecting distant hazards; stereo vision for, e.g., spotting hazards such as pedestrians or tree branches; wheel sensors for, e.g., measuring velocity; ultra sound for, e.g., parking and obstacle detection; global positioning system (GPS) for, e.g., determining the vehicle's current geolocation; and/or inertial measurement units, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and/or odometer systems for movement or motion detection. Data from these systems and modules may be used by a navigation system to safely guide the autonomous vehicle, even without the aid of a human driver. The autonomous vehicle may also include communication devices for, e.g., wirelessly communicating with one or more servers, user devices (e.g., smartphones, tablet computers, smart wearable devices, laptop computers) and/or other vehicles.

Successful and safe navigation of an AV depends on having accurate data measurement and representation of the external environment at all times. Having accurate data or three-dimensional model of the external environment is, in turn, dependent at least in part on proper calibration of the AV's sensors, which may include knowing the initial configurations and/or conditions of the sensors and how objects or obstacles are detected by the sensors. To maintain an accurate representation or model of the external environment, the sensors of the AV may require periodic recalibration to ensure safe navigation of the AV. However, recalibration of the sensors can be a time-consuming process, especially given the numerous sensors that an AV may be equipped with. AVs are inoperable or taken offline while their sensors are being recalibrated, thereby reducing the utilization of the AVs and the capabilities of an AV management system. In addition, calibration of sensors may be a painstaking, manual process that requires specialized labor and increased costs of operation of the AVs.

