• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.442-453
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• 2020

Underwater color images suffer from low visibility and color cast effects caused by light attenuation by water and floating particles. This study applied single image enhancement techniques to enhance the quality of underwater images and compared their performance with real underwater images taken in Korean waters. Dark channel prior (DCP), gradient transform, image fusion, and generative adversarial networks (GAN), such as cycleGAN and underwater GAN (UGAN), were considered for single image enhancement. Their performance was evaluated in terms of underwater image quality measure, underwater color image quality evaluation, gray-world assumption, and blur metric. The DCP saturated the underwater images to a specific greenish or bluish color tone and reduced the brightness of the background signal. The gradient transform method with two transmission maps were sensitive to the light source and highlighted the region exposed to light. Although image fusion enabled reasonable color correction, the object details were lost due to the last fusion step. CycleGAN corrected overall color tone relatively well but generated artifacts in the background. UGAN showed good visual quality and obtained the highest scores against all figures of merit (FOMs) by compensating for the colors and visibility compared to the other single enhancement methods.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.1379-1386
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• 2018

Conventional underwater cameras used in fish farms can only shoot limited areas and are vulnerable to underwater contamination. There is also a problem with contaminated farms as surplus residues are deposited as a result of feed supply to farms' nets. This paper proposes underwater drones for underwater monitoring of fish farms and cleaning nets. If underwater drones are used for management of fish farms, underwater imaging, monitoring and cleaning of fish farms' nets can be possible. By using this technology, data can be collected by detecting changes in the environment of a fish farm and responding to changes that occur within a fish farm based on the data. In addition, the establishment of an integrated control system will enable to build efficient and stable smart farms.

• 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.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.1180-1187
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• 2018

This paper had implemented the underwater stage through interaction with fish robots and visitors in the background of traditional fairy tales using 3D floating hologram in an aquarium. The recognition of the object position of the spectator and the underwater robot were performed using the color recognition algorithm. Also, the position tracking algorithm was proposed to follow the object of the visitor and the original fairy tale. This experimental system consists of fish robot, camera, KIOSK for underwater robot control and beam project for underwater imaging. This experiment was carried out by the National Busan Science Museum, and it had satisfied the performance of the underwater stage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.164-173
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• 2014

In underwater robotics, vision would be a key element for recognition in underwater environments. However, due to turbidity an underwater optical camera is rarely available. An underwater imaging sonar, as an alternative, delivers low quality sonar images which are not stable and accurate enough to find out natural objects by image processing. For this, artificial landmarks based on the characteristics of ultrasonic waves and their recognition method by a shape matrix transformation were proposed and were proven in Part 1. But, this is not working properly in undulating and dynamically noisy sea-bottom. To solve this, we propose a framework providing a selection phase of likelihood candidates, a selection phase for final candidates, recognition phase and tracking phase in sequence images, where a particle filter based selection mechanism to eliminate fake candidates and a mean shift based tracking algorithm are also proposed. All 4 steps are running in parallel and real-time processing. The proposed framework is flexible to add and to modify internal algorithms. A pool test and sea trial are carried out to prove the performance, and detail analysis of experimental results are done. Information is obtained from tracking phase such as relative distance, bearing will be expected to be used for control and navigation of underwater robots.

• Metals and materials international
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1327-1332
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• 2018

In this study, a novel approach to the explosive synthesis of titanium carbide (TiC) is discussed. Nonstoichiometric $TiC_x$ powder was produced via the underwater explosion of a Ti powder encapsulated within a spherical explosive charge. The explosion process, bubble formation, and synthesis process were visualized using high-speed camera imaging. It was concluded that synthesis occurred within the detonation gas during the first expansion/contraction cycle of the bubble, which was accompanied by a strong emission of light. The recovered powders were studied using scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Submicron particles were generated during the explosion. An increase in the carbon content of the starting powder resulted in an increase in the carbon content of the final product. No oxide byproducts were observed within the recovered powders.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.5-16
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• 2007

The monitoring and investigation of underwater landslide help to understand its mechanism, increase the usefuless of design and construction and reduce the losses. This paper presents three high resolution geophysical techniques electrical resisitance, ultrasonic wave reflection imaging, and shear wave tomography conducted to determine the lab-scaled submerged landslide. Electrical resistance profiles of a soil mass obtained by an electrical resistance probe provide detailed information to assess the spatial distribution of the soil mass with milimetric resolution. An ultrasonic wave image obtained by recording the reflections from interfaces of different impedance materials permits detecting layers and landslide with submilimetric resolution. The pixel based image of immersed landslides is created by the inversion of the boundary information achieved from the traveling time of shear waves. The experimental results show that the ultrasonic wave imaging and the electrical resistance can provide complementary information; and their association with S-wave tomography image can produce a 3-D view of the underwater landslide. This study suggests that geophysical techniques may be effective tools for the detection of the underwater landslides and spatial distribution offshore.