• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.11-22
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• 2022

Unlike a short-range, a long-range underwater acoustic communication(UWAC) uses low frequency signal and deep sound channel to minimize propagation loss. In this case, even though communication signals are modulated using a covert transmission technique such as spread spectrum, it is hard to conceal the existence of the signals. The unconcealed communication signal can be utilized as active sonar signal by enemy and presence of underwater vehicles may be exposed to the interceptor. Since it is very important to maintain stealthiness for underwater vehicles, the detection probability of friendly underwater vehicles should be considered when interceptor utilizes our long-range UWAC signal. In this paper, we modeled a long-range UWAC environment for analyzing the detection performance of underwater vehicles and proposed the region of interest(ROI) setup method and the measurement of detection performance. By computer simulations, we yielded parameters, analyzed the detection probability and the detection performance in ROI. The analysis results showed that the proposed detection performance analysis method for underwater vehicles could play an important role in the operation of long-range UWAC equipment.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2019

In the ground environment, mobile robot research uses sensors such as GPS and optical cameras to localize surrounding landmarks and to estimate the position of the robot. However, an underwater environment restricts the use of sensors such as optical cameras and GPS. Also, unlike the ground environment, it is difficult to make a continuous observation of landmarks for location estimation. So, in underwater research, artificial markers are installed to generate a strong and lasting landmark. When artificial markers are acquired with an underwater sonar sensor, different types of noise are caused in the underwater sonar image. This noise is one of the factors that reduces object detection performance. This paper aims to improve object detection performance through distortion and rotation augmentation of training data. Object detection is detected using a Faster R-CNN.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.142-149
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• 2012

The camera has limitations of poor visibility in underwater environment due to the limited light source and medium noise of the environment. However, its usefulness in close range has been proved in many studies, especially for navigation. Thus, in this paper, vision-based object detection and tracking techniques using artificial objects for underwater robots have been studied. We employed template matching and mean shift algorithms for the object detection and tracking methods. Also, we propose the weighted correlation coefficient of adaptive threshold -based and color-region-aided approaches to enhance the object detection performance in various illumination conditions. The color information is incorporated into the template matched area and the features of the template are used to robustly calculate correlation coefficients. And the objects are recognized using multi-template matching approach. Finally, the water basin experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed techniques using an underwater robot platform yShark made by KORDI.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.551-560
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• 2012

Target detection by acoustic barrier method includes active and passive sonar technique and time reversal process whose theoretical background is already well defined. In this paper, the concept and theory of underwater detection by passive ocean time reversal is established. Also, the reason that this study was conducted was to investigate feasibility of complex mathematical modeling to provide some predictive capability for underwater acoustic barrier with passive time reversal. It may eventually lead to a useful predictive tool when designing underwater acoustic barrier detection system using the passive time reversal concept.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.10
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• pp.148-158
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• 2015

It is difficult to test a detection system in underwater acoustics channel environments. The system can be evaluated by using simulation analysis tool. In this paper, a simulation tool is proposed to analyze the effectiveness of underwater acoustics detection based on database for real environments. First, the underwater environment is built based on HYCOM underwater environment database. Then, a multipath characteristic is considered through calculating underwater acoustics propagation path/pressure based on the ray theory. Also, hydrophone thermal noise and underwater ambient noise are considered to reflect underwater noise characteristics.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.285-292
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• 2024

When calculating sonar detection probability, underwater acoustic uncertainty is assumed to be normal distributed with a standard deviation of 8 dB to 9 dB. However, due to the variability in experimental areas and ocean environmental conditions, predicting detection performance requires accounting for underwater acoustic uncertainty based on ocean experimental data. In this study, underwater acoustic uncertainty was determined using measured mid-frequency (2.3 kHz, 3 kHz) noise level and transmission loss data collected in the shallow water of the East Sea. After calculating the predictable probability of detection reflecting underwater acoustic uncertainty based on ocean experimental data, we compared it with the conventional detection probability results, as well as the predictable probability of detection results considering the uncertainty of the Rayleigh distribution and a negatively skewed distribution. As a result, we confirmed that differences in the detection area occur depending on each underwater acoustic uncertainty.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.217-231
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• 2016

This paper presents a new approach for underwater image analysis using the bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) technique and the phase congruency information. The BEMD algorithm, fully unsupervised, it is mainly applied to texture extraction and image filtering, which are widely recognized as a difficult and challenging machine vision problem. The phase information is the very stability feature of image. Recent developments in analysis methods on the phase congruency information have received large attention by the image researchers. In this paper, the proposed method is called the EP model that inherits the advantages of the first two algorithms, so this model is suitable for processing underwater image. Moreover, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is presented in this paper to solve the problem that the threshold is greatly affected by personal experience when underwater image edge detection is performed using the EP model. The EP images are computed using combinations of the Canny detector parameters, and the binaryzation image results are generated accordingly. The ideal EP edge feature extractive maps are estimated using correspondence threshold which is optimized by ROC analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to avoid the operation error caused by manual setting of the detection threshold, and to adaptively set the image feature detection threshold. The proposed method has been proved to be accuracy and effectiveness by the underwater image processing examples.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.91-98
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• 2016

Detection and classification of underwater objects in sonar imagery are challenging problems. This paper proposes a system that detects and identifies underwater objects at the sea floor level using a sonar image and image processing techniques. The identification process of underwater objects consists of two steps; detection of candidate regions and identification of underwater objects. The candidate regions of underwater objects are extracted by image registration through the detection of common feature points between the reference background image and the current scanning image. And then, underwater objects are identified as the closest pattern within the database using eigenvectors and eigenvalues as features. The proposed system is expected to be used in efficient securement of Q route in vessel navigation.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.667-675
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• 2013

This paper presents vision-based techniques for underwater landmark detection, map-based localization, and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) in structured underwater environments. A variety of underwater tasks require an underwater robot to be able to successfully perform autonomous navigation, but the available sensors for accurate localization are limited. A vision sensor among the available sensors is very useful for performing short range tasks, in spite of harsh underwater conditions including low visibility, noise, and large areas of featureless topography. To overcome these problems and to a utilize vision sensor for underwater localization, we propose a novel vision-based object detection technique to be applied to MCL (Monte Carlo Localization) and EKF (Extended Kalman Filter)-based SLAM algorithms. In the image processing step, a weighted correlation coefficient-based template matching and color-based image segmentation method are proposed to improve the conventional approach. In the localization step, in order to apply the landmark detection results to MCL and EKF-SLAM, dead-reckoning information and landmark detection results are used for prediction and update phases, respectively. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated by experiments with an underwater robot platform in an indoor water tank and the results are discussed.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.198-205
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• 2005

Recently, the systems using multiple sensors such as magnetic, acoustic and pressure sensor are used for detection of underwater objects or vehicles. Those systems have difficulty of maintenance and repair because they operate underwater. Thus, this paper describes a hybrid detection system with long term operating reliability. This has a multi-signal transmission structure to have a high reliability. First, a signal transmission & receiving part, which transfers data from underwater sensors to land and receive control message from land through optical cable, has 4 multi-path. Second, the nodes for signal transmission are connected dually each other with single-hop construction and sensors are connected to a couple of neighboring nodes. This enables the output signal to transmit from a node to the next node and the next but one node together. Also, the signal from a sensor can be transmitted to two nodes at the same time. Therefore, the system with this construction has high reliability in long term operation because it makes possible to transmit sensor data to another node which works normally although a transmission node or cable in system have some faults.