• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제13권2호
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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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• 제11권4호
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• pp.331-351
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• 2021

Underwater images are very much different from images taken on land, due to the presence of a higher disturbance ratio caused by the presence of water medium between the camera and the target object. These distortions and noises result in unclear details and reduced quality of the output image. An underwater image restoration method is proposed in this paper, which uses blurriness information, background light neutralization information, and red-light intensity to estimate depth. The transmission map is then estimated using the derived depth map, by considering separate attenuation coefficients for direct and backscattered signals. The estimated transmission map and estimated background light are then used to recover the scene radiance. Qualitative and quantitative analysis have been used to compare the performance of the proposed method against other state-of-the-art restoration methods. It has been shown that the proposed method can yield good quality restored underwater images. The proposed method has also been evaluated using different qualitative metrics, and results have shown that method is highly capable of restoring underwater images with different conditions. The results are significant and show the applicability of the proposed method for underwater image restoration work.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.679-687
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• 2019

This paper presents the autonomous swimming technology developed for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) operating in the underwater jacket structure environment. To prevent the position divergence of the inertial navigation system constructed for the primary navigation solution for the vehicle, we've developed kinds of marker-recognition based underwater localization methods using both of optical and acoustic cameras. However, these two methods all require the artificial markers to be located near to the cameras mounted on the vehicle. Therefore, in the case of the vehicle far away from the structure where the markers are usually mounted on, we may need alternative position-aiding solution to guarantee the navigation accuracy. For this purpose, we develop a sonar image processing based underwater localization method using a Forward Looking Sonar (FLS) mounted in front of the vehicle. The primary purpose of this FLS is to detect the obstacles in front of the vehicle. According to the detected obstacle(s), we apply an Occupancy Grid Map (OGM) based path planning algorithm to derive an obstacle collision-free reference path. Experimental studies are carried out in the water tank and also in the Pohang Yeongilman port sea environment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed autonomous swimming technology.

• 융합신호처리학회논문지
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• 제11권3호
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• pp.203-208
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• 2010

본 논문에서는 소나 시스템을 통해 획득된 수중 음향 신호를 디지털 영상의 형태로 변환한다. 그리고 이러한 형태의 영상에 대해 영상 처리 기법을 도입하여 표적 후보를 탐지하고, 이들 영역에 대해 정보를 강화하는 알고리즘을 제안한다. 수중 표적의 탐지 과정은 우선 수중음향신호 영상에서 불규칙한 형태로 분포하고 있는 배경 잡음을 추정하여 재구성한 뒤, 원 영상에서 배경 영상을 제거하여 초기 표적 후보군을 획득한다. 또한 도플러 신호 정보를 가공하여 가중치 맵을 생성하고, 배경잡음이 제거된 영상에 대해 가중치 맵을 이용한 필터링 과정을 수행함으로써 표적 후보에 대한 정보를 보다 정확히 확보하고, 단일프레임에서의 표적 후보 정보를 강화한다. 본 논문에서는 시뮬레이션으로 획득된 수중음향신호에 대해 제안된 알고리즘을 적용하여, 불규칙적으로 발생하게 되는 잡음이 대부분 제거됨을 확인하였고, 필터링 및 표적 탐지 과정을 통해 수중음향신호 영상에서 표적이 더욱 명확히 표시됨을 확인하였다.

• 한국항행학회논문지
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• 제24권5호
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• pp.343-347
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• 2020

본 논문에서는 수중에서의 물체위치추적 소프트웨어와 수중선저 입체지도 생성 소프트웨어를 개발하였다. 선저청소로봇을 위한 소프트웨어로써 선저 청소로봇의 위치를 추적하고 음파통신의 음영지역을 발견함으로써 센서의 정위 구현을 목표로 하였다. 수중에서 로봇의 위치를 추적하기 위하여 개발된 소프트웨어는 수중의 초음파통신에 변수로 작용하는 파도의 고저와 세기를 적용하였다. 선(lines)들을 이용하여 그려진 선박의 도면을 스캔하여 OpenGL을 이용하여 입체지도를 형성하는 소프트웨어를 개발하였다. 이는 청소로봇이 비가시적인 수중 선저에서의 위치파악이 용이하며, 선저의 굴곡으로 인한 초음파통신 음영지역을 쉽게 발견함으로써 그에 따른 센서의 정위를 구현하여 원활한 통신 상태를 유지하는데 활용될 수 있다.

• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.238-244
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• 2021

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.

• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제13권3호
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• pp.190-197
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• 2018

Geomagnetic field signals have potential for use in underwater navigation and geophysical surveys. To map underwater geomagnetic fields, we propose a method that exploits an autonomous surface vehicle. In our system, a magnetometer is rigidly attached to the vehicle and not towed by a cable, minimizing the system's size and complexity but requiring a dedicated calibration procedure due to magnetic distortion caused by the vehicle. Conventional 2D methods can be employed for the calibration by assuming the horizontal movement of the magnetometer, whereas the proposed 3D approach can correct for horizontal misalignment of the sensor. Our method does not require a supporting crane system to rotate the vehicle, and calibrates and maps simultaneously by exploiting data obtained from field operation. The proposed method has been verified experimentally in inland waters, generating a magnetic field map of the test area that is of much higher resolution than the public magnetic field data.

• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.188-195
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• 2024

This paper proposes a photorealistic real-time dense 3D mapping system that utilizes a neural network-based image enhancement method and mesh-based map representation. Due to the characteristics of the underwater environment, where problems such as hazing and low contrast occur, it is hard to apply conventional simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) methods. At the same time, the behavior of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is computationally constrained. In this paper, we utilize a neural network-based image enhancement method to improve pose estimation and mapping quality and apply a sliding window-based mesh expansion method to enable lightweight, fast, and photorealistic mapping. To validate our results, we utilize real-world and indoor synthetic datasets. We performed qualitative validation with the real-world dataset and quantitative validation by modeling images from the indoor synthetic dataset as underwater scenes.

• 보존과학회지
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• 제37권4호
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• pp.312-321
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• 2021

Underwater archaeology relies heavily on photography and video image recording during surveillances and excavations like ordinary archaeological studies on land. All underwater images suffer poor image quality and distortions due to poor visibility, low contrast and blur, caused by differences in refractive indices of water and air, properties of selected lenses and shapes of viewports. In the Yellow Sea (between mainland China and the Korean peninsula), the visibility underwater is far less than 1 m, typically in the range of 30 cm to 50 cm, on even a clear day, due to very high turbidity. For photographing 1 m x 1 m grids underwater, a very wide view angle (180°) fisheye lens with an 8 mm focal length is intentionally used despite unwanted severe barrel-shaped image distortion, even with a dome port camera housing. It is very difficult to map wide underwater archaeological excavation sites by combining severely distorted images. Development of practical compensation methods for distorted underwater images acquired through the fisheye lens is strongly desired. In this study, the source of image distortion in underwater photography is investigated. We have identified the source of image distortion as the mismatching, in optical axis and focal points, between dome port housing and fisheye lens. A practical image distortion compensation method, using customized image processing software, was explored and verified using archived underwater excavation images for effectiveness in underwater archaeological applications. To minimize unusable area due to severe distortion after distortion compensation, practical underwater photography guidelines are suggested.

• 센서학회지
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• 제10권6호
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• pp.286-294
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• 2001

본 연구에서는 자체 제작한 3-3형 복합압전체 초음파 트랜스듀서와 SOFM(Self Organizing Feature Map) 신경회로망을 이용한 수중 3차원 물체인식특성에 대해 연구하였다. 자체 제작한 3-3형 복합압전체 소자는 수중 초음파 트랜스듀서 재료로서의 요구조건을 비교적 잘 만족하였다. 자체 제작한 3-3형 복합압전체 트랜스듀서와 SOFM 신경회로망을 이용하여 얻어진 4종의 인식물체(정사각기둥, 직사각기둥, 원통, 정삼각기둥)에 대한 전체적인 수중 물체인식률은 학습데이터인 경우에는 100%, 시험데이터는 94.0%를 나타내었다. 이들 결과로부터 자체 제작한 3-3형 복합압전체 초음파 트랜스듀서는 수중 물체인식용 트랜스듀서로서 응용될 수 있음을 알 수 있었다.