Preliminary Results on Underwater Object Recognition with a Laser Scanner for Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

Abstract

This paper presents a camera-laser scanner system for underwater ranging and preliminary results of three-dimensional (3D) object recognition. Calibration between the camera and the laser is necessary to obtain precise 3D information. To accomplish this, we adopted a triangulation-based method proposed by Forest and Collado (New methods for triangulation-based shape acquisition using laser scanners. Univeritat de Girona, 2004 [1]) and designed a simple image processing sequence to detect a projected laser line on the image. Using precise ranging measurement from laser scanner, underwater 3D objects were reconstructed and recognized in virtual 3D space. To verify the performance of a laser scanner and the 3D recognition, we performed an experiment in a water tank.