• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.195-224
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• 2023

This paper proposes a method for the acoustic imaging wherein the traditional requirement of the relative movement between the transmitter and target is overcome. This is facilitated through the beamforming acoustic array in the transmitter, in which the target is illuminated by the array at various azimuth and elevation angles without the physical movement of the acoustic array. The concept of beam steering of the acoustic array facilitates the formation of the beam at desired angular positions of azimuth and elevation angles. This paper substantiates that the combination of illumination of the target from different azimuth and elevation angles with respect to the transmitter (through the beam steering of beam forming acoustic array) and the beam steering at multiple frequencies (through SF) results in enhanced reconstruction of images of the target in the underwater scenario. This paper also demonstrates the possibility of reconstruction of the image of a target in underwater without invoking the traditional algorithms of Digital Image Processing (DIP). This paper comprehensively and succinctly presents all the empirical formulae required for modelling the acoustic medium and the target to facilitate the reader with a comprehensive summary document incorporating the various parameters of multi-disciplinary nature.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.26 no.6_spc
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• pp.687-696
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• 2016

A series of process to design an acoustic lens for underwater imaging is reviewed and the method to evaluate characteristics of the lens is investigated. If the target specification of lens is given, the design process consists of the material selection, evaluation of its properties, lens geometry design, prediction of lens characteristics, manufacturing, and evaluation by measurement. In this study, an actual acoustical lens is made by cutting polymethylpentene block. The characteristics of lens are predicted by the hybrid method, combination of ray tracing and Rayleigh integral. For the direct comparison between the prediction and measurement results, a simulation method based on the equivalent source method is suggested to reflect the actual radiation pattern of transducer used for measurements. Finally, the measurement is conducted in a small water tank to observe the actual characteristics of the manufactured lens.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2018

This study focuses on autonomous exploration based on map expansion for an underwater robot equipped with acoustic sonars. Map expansion is applicable to large-area mapping, but it may affect localization accuracy. Thus, as the key contribution of this paper, we propose a method for underwater autonomous exploration wherein the robot determines the trade-off between map expansion ratio and position accuracy, selects which of the two has higher priority, and then moves to a mission step. An occupancy grid map is synthesized by utilizing the measurements of an acoustic range sonar that determines the probability of occupancy. This information is then used to determine a path to the frontier, which becomes the new search point. During area searching and map building, the robot revisits artificial landmarks to improve its position accuracy as based on imaging sonar-based recognition and EKF-SLAM if the position accuracy is above the predetermined threshold. Additionally, real-time experiments were conducted by using an underwater robot, yShark, to validate the proposed method, and the analysis of the results is discussed herein.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.435-449
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• 2020

This paper proposes a method to estimate the underwater target object's yaw angle using a sonar image. A simulator modeling imaging mechanism of a sonar sensor and a generative adversarial network for style transfer generates realistic template images of the target object by predicting shapes according to the viewing angles. Then, the target object's yaw angle can be estimated by comparing the template images and a shape taken in real sonar images. We verified the proposed method by conducting water tank experiments. The proposed method was also applied to AUV in field experiments. The proposed method, which provides bearing information between underwater objects and the sonar sensor, can be applied to algorithms such as underwater localization or multi-view-based underwater object recognition.

• Proceedings of the Acoustical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1984.12a
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• pp.96-99
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• 1984

In this study, the underwater acoustic images were obtained by ultrasonicwave. The experiment was performed in the anechoic watertank, using a passive sonar array for one and two sound source respectively by X-Y scanning technique. The receiving array was consist of 8 disc type transducers with 1.5cm diameter at 25KHz resonance frequency. The scanned data were processed by the FORTRAN IV algorithm for the reconstruction of image, and the image had some noise due to the surface reflected waves. As the result, it was found that the acoustic imaging by electrical deflection and dynamic focusing technique is applicable to SONAR with the suppression of surface reflected wave.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.116-122
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• 2016

This paper proposes a practical object shape reconstruction method using an underwater imaging sonar. In order to reconstruct the object shape, three methods are utilized. Firstly, the vertical field of view of imaging sonar is modified to narrow angle to reduce an uncertainty of estimated 3D position. The wide vertical field of view makes the incorrect estimation result about the 3D position of the underwater object. Secondly, simple noise filtering and range detection methods are designed to extract a distance from the sonar image. Lastly, a low pass filter is adopted to estimate a probability of voxel occupancy. To demonstrate the proposed methods, object shape reconstruction for three sample objects was performed in a basin and results are explained.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2023

Various sources, such as wind, waves, ships, and gas leaks from the seafloor, forms bubbles in the ocean. Underwater bubbles cause signal scattering, considerably affecting acoustic measurements. This characteristic of bubbles is used to block underwater noise by attenuating the intensity of the propagated signal. Recently, researchers have been studying the large-scale release of methane gas as bubble plumes from the seabed. Understanding the physical properties and distribution of bubble plumes is crucial for studying the relation between leaked methane gas and climate change. Therefore, a water tank experiment was conducted to estimate the distribution of bubble plumes using seismic imaging techniques and acoustic signals obtained from artificially generated bubbles using a bubble generator. Reverse time migration was applied to image the bubble plumes while the acquired acoustic envelope signal was used to effectively estimate bubble distribution. Imaging results were compared with optical camera images to verify the estimated bubble distribution. The water tank experiment confirmed that the proposed system could successfully image the distribution of bubble plumes using reverse time migration and the envelope signal. The experiment showed that the scattering signal of artificial bubble plumes can be used for seismic imaging.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.110-117
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• 2023

Reconstructing underwater geometry in real time with forward-looking sonar is critical for applications such as localization, mapping, and path planning. Geometrical data must be repeatedly calculated and overwritten in real time because the reliability of the acoustic data is affected by various factors. Moreover, scattering of signal data during the coordinate conversion process may lead to geometrical errors, which lowers the accuracy of the information obtained by the sensor system. In this study, we propose a three-step data processing method with low computational cost for real-time operation. First, the number of data points to be interpolated is determined with respect to the distance between each point and the size of the data grid in a Cartesian coordinate system. Then, the data are processed with a nonlinear interpolation so that they exhibit linear properties in the coordinate system. Finally, the data are transformed based on variations in the position and orientation of the sonar over time. The results of an evaluation of our proposed approach in a simulation show that the nonlinear interpolation operation constructed a continuous underwater geometry dataset with low geometrical error.