The Journal of Korea Robotics Society (로봇학회논문지)

Korea Robotics Society (한국로봇학회)
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Image Mosaicking Considering Pairwise Registrability in Structure Inspection with Underwater Robots

수중 로봇을 이용한 구조물 검사에서의 상호 정합도를 고려한 영상 모자이킹

  • Hong, Seonghun (Department of Robot Engineering, Keimyung University)
  • Received : 2021.02.19
  • Accepted : 2021.03.30
  • Published : 2021.08.31
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Abstract

Image mosaicking is a common and useful technique to visualize a global map by stitching a large number of local images obtained from visual surveys in underwater environments. In particular, visual inspection of underwater structures using underwater robots can be a potential application for image mosaicking. Feature-based pairwise image registration is a commonly employed process in most image mosaicking algorithms to estimate visual odometry information between compared images. However, visual features are not always uniformly distributed on the surface of underwater structures, and thus the performance of image registration can vary significantly, which results in unnecessary computations in image matching for poor-conditioned image pairs. This study proposes a pairwise registrability measure to select informative image pairs and to improve the overall computational efficiency of underwater image mosaicking algorithms. The validity and effectiveness of the image mosaicking algorithm considering the pairwise registrability are demonstrated using an experimental dataset obtained with a full-scale ship in a real sea environment.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Bisa Research Grant of Keimyung University in 2020.

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