• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.421-427
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• 2004

In order to exploit underwater resources successfully, the first step would be a marine environmental research and exploration in the seafloor. Generally one sets up a long-term underwater experimental unit in the seafloor and retrieves the unit later after a certain period time. Essential to these applications is the reliable teleoperation and telemetering of the unit. In this paper we presents a robust underwater sound recognition algorithm by which we can identify the sound signal without the influence of disturbances due to underwater environmental changes. The proposed method provides a means suitable for the acoustic releaser which requires low power dissipation and long-time underwater operation. We demonstrate its ability of securing stability and fast sound recognition through simulation methods.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.158-160
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• 2005

In order to successfully exploit underwater resources, the first step would be a marine environmental research and exploration on the seafloor. Traditionally one sets up a long-term underwater experimental unit on the seafloor and retrieves the unit later after a certain period time. Essential to these applications is the reliable teleoperation and telemetering of the unit. In our proposed ultrasonic-wave remote control system and an underwater sound recognition algorithm that can identify the sound signal without the influence of disturbances due to underwater environmental changes. The proposed method provides a means suitable for units which require low power dissipation and long-time underwater operation. We demonstrate its ability of securing stability and fast sound recognition through experimental methods.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.837-856
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• 2016

Underwater image enhancement has received considerable attention in last decades, due to the nature of poor visibility and low contrast of underwater images. In this paper, we propose a new automatic underwater image enhancement algorithm, which combines nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) domain enhancement techniques with the mechanism of the human visual system (HVS). We apply the multiscale retinex algorithm based on the HVS into NSCT domain in order to eliminate the non-uniform illumination, and adopt the threshold denoising technique to suppress underwater noise. Our proposed algorithm incorporates the luminance masking and contrast masking characteristics of the HVS into NSCT domain to yield the new HVS-based NSCT. Moreover, we define two nonlinear mapping functions. The first one is used to manipulate the HVS-based NSCT contrast coefficients to enhance the edges. The second one is a gain function which modifies the lowpass subband coefficients to adjust the global dynamic range. As a result, our algorithm can achieve contrast enhancement, image denoising and edge sharpening automatically and simultaneously. Experimental results illustrate that our proposed algorithm has better enhancement performance than state-of-the-art algorithms both in subjective evaluation and quantitative assessment. In addition, our algorithm can automatically achieve underwater image enhancement without any parameter tuning.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.214-220
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• 2016

Imaging sonars such as side-scanning sonar or forward-looking sonar are becoming fundamental sensors in the underwater robotics field. However, using sonar images for underwater perception presents many challenges. Sonar images are usually low resolution with inherent speckled noise. To overcome the limited sensor information for underwater perception, we investigated preprocessing methods for sonar images and feature detection methods for a nonlinear scale space. In this paper, we focus on a comparative analysis of (1) preprocessing for sonar images and (2) the feature detection performance in relation to the scale space composition.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.298-305
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated the tensile bond characteristics of underwater coating materials, in order to obtain useful information in support of repair work for marine and coastal concrete structures. Test variables included type of underwater coating, surface conditions of the concrete substrate, and environmental conditions. Pull-off tensile bond strength was measured at 24 h after applying underwater coatings to concrete substrates, in compliance with the procedures specified in ASTM C1583. Failure modes (coating, interface, and parent concrete) for each coating were identified through visual inspection, and comparisons were made based on measured bond strength. The tensile bond strength decreased underwater compared to that under dry conditions, while no significant effect of surface roughness on the measured bond strength was observed in underwater tests. Key aspects that need to be considered regarding selection and use of underwater coating materials for marine and coastal concrete structures were discussed.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.11c
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• pp.117-119
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• 2004

In order to successfully exploit underwater resources, the first step would be a marine environmental research and exploration on the seafloor. Traditionally one sets up a long-term underwater experimental unit on the seafloor and retrieves the unit later after a certain period time. Essential to these applications is the reliable teleoperation and telemetering of the unit. This study presents ultrasonic-wave remote control system and an underwater sound recognition algorithm that can identify the sound signal without the influence of disturbances due to underwater environmental changes. The proposed method provides a means suitable for units which require low power dissipation and long-time underwater operation. We demonstrate its ability of securing stability and fast sound recognition through experimental methods.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.157-166
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• 2011

As underwater environment monitoring system's interest has increased, the research is proceeding about underwater acoustic sensor network. Underwater sensor network can be applicable to many fields, such as underwater environment monitoring, underwater resource exploration, oceanic data collection, military purposes, etc. It is essential to define the PHY-MAC protocol for revitalization of the underwater acoustic sensor network which is available utilization in a variety of fields. However, underwater acoustic sensor network has to implement by consideration of underwater environmental characteristics, such as limited bandwidth, multi-path, fading, long propagation delay caused by low acoustic speed. In this paper, we define frequency of adjusted PHY protocol, network topology, MAC protocol, PHY-MAC interface, data frame format by consideration of underwater environmental characteristics. We also present system configuration of our implementation and evaluate performance based on our implementation with test in real underwater field.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

In this paper, we introduce the methodology that utilizes deep learning-based front-end to enhance underwater feature matching. Both optical camera and sonar are widely applicable sensors in underwater research, however, each sensor has its own weaknesses, such as light condition and turbidity for the optic camera, and noise for sonar. To overcome the problems, we proposed the opti-acoustic transformation method. Since feature detection in sonar image is challenging, we converted the sonar image to an optic style image. Maintaining the main contents in the sonar image, CNN-based style transfer method changed the style of the image that facilitates feature detection. Finally, we verified our result using cosine similarity comparison and feature matching against the original optic image.

• 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 Information Technology and Architecture
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.253-263
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• 2012

Presented in the paper is a methodology for the distributed simulation of underwater warfare based on standard synthetic environment. In the case of underwater warfare simulation, it is very important to reflect environmental data, such as salinity and temperature. For the reusability and interoperability of environmental data, this paper adopts Synthetic Environmental Data Representation and Interchange Specification (SEDRIS(ISO standard for environmental data)). Although SEDRIS provides various merits as an international standard, applying of SEDRIS has been hindered by its broadness and heaviness. To relieve the difficulties, this paper proposes an efficient procedure to utilize SEDRIS technology for the atmosphere and underwater environment. This paper identifies SEDRIS structure for the atmosphere/underwater structured dimensional grid-based and implements the proposed procedure on the High Level Architecture (HLA) / Run-Time Infrastructure (RTI) to explain the generation of the battlefield in a distributed simulation system.