An Active Contour For Underwater Target Tracking And Navigation.

This paper presents a vision based tracking system for routine underwater pipeline or cable inspection for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV’s)

A Bayesian Approach For Image-Based Underwater Target Tracking And Navigation [TC1800. A832 2007 f rb].

Operasi pemeriksaan dan pemantauan di dasar laut merupakan aktiviti penting untuk industri di luar persisiran pantai terutamanya bagi tujuan pembangunan dan pemasangan infrastruktur. Sejak kebelakangan ini, pemasangan struktur di dasar laut seperti saluran paip gas atau petroleum dan kabel telekomunikasi telah meningkat. Pemeriksaan rutin adalah sangat mustahak untuk mencegah kerosakan. Undersea inspections and surveys are important requirements for offshore industry and mining organisation for various infra-structures installations. During the last decade, the use of underwater structure installations, such as oil or gas pipeline and telecommunication cables has increased many folds

The Hierarchic treatment of marine ecological information from spatial networks of benthic platforms

Measuring biodiversity simultaneously in different locations, at different temporal scales, and over wide spatial scales is of strategic importance for the improvement of our understanding of the functioning of marine ecosystems and for the conservation of their biodiversity. Monitoring networks of cabled observatories, along with other docked autonomous systems (e.g., Remotely Operated Vehicles [ROVs], Autonomous Underwater Vehicles [AUVs], and crawlers), are being conceived and established at a spatial scale capable of tracking energy fluxes across benthic and pelagic compartments, as well as across geographic ecotones. At the same time, optoacoustic imaging is sustaining an unprecedented expansion in marine ecological monitoring, enabling the acquisition of new biological and environmental data at an appropriate spatiotemporal scale. At this stage, one of the main problems for an effective application of these technologies is the processing, storage, and treatment of the acquired complex ecological information. Here, we provide a conceptual overview on the technological developments in the multiparametric generation, storage, and automated hierarchic treatment of biological and environmental information required to capture the spatiotemporal complexity of a marine ecosystem. In doing so, we present a pipeline of ecological data acquisition and processing in different steps and prone to automation. We also give an example of population biomass, community richness and biodiversity data computation (as indicators for ecosystem functionality) with an Internet Operated Vehicle (a mobile crawler). Finally, we discuss the software requirements for that automated data processing at the level of cyber-infrastructures with sensor calibration and control, data banking, and ingestion into large data portals.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Robotics Vision-based Heuristic Reasoning for Underwater Target Tracking and Navigation

This paper presents a robotics vision-based heuristic reasoning system for underwater target tracking and navigation. This system is introduced to improve the level of automation of underwater Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) operations. A prototype which combines computer vision with an underwater robotics system is successfully designed and developed to perform target tracking and intelligent navigation. This study focuses on developing image processing algorithms and fuzzy inference system for the analysis of the terrain. The vision system developed is capable of interpreting underwater scene by extracting subjective uncertainties of the object of interest. Subjective uncertainties are further processed as multiple inputs of a fuzzy inference system that is capable of making crisp decisions concerning where to navigate. The important part of the image analysis is morphological filtering. The applications focus on binary images with the extension of gray-level concepts. An open-loop fuzzy control system is developed for classifying the traverse of terrain. The great achievement is the system's capability to recognize and perform target tracking of the object of interest (pipeline) in perspective view based on perceived condition. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by computer and prototype simulations. This work is originated from the desire to develop robotics vision system with the ability to mimic the human expert's judgement and reasoning when maneuvering ROV in the traverse of the underwater terrain

Mission Planning and Safety Assessment for Pipeline Inspection Using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: A Framework based on Behavior Trees

The recent advance in autonomous underwater robotics facilitates autonomous inspection tasks of offshore infrastructure. However, current inspection missions rely on predefined plans created offline, hampering the flexibility and autonomy of the inspection vehicle and the mission's success in case of unexpected events. In this work, we address these challenges by proposing a framework encompassing the modeling and verification of mission plans through Behavior Trees (BTs). This framework leverages the modularity of BTs to model onboard reactive behaviors, thus enabling autonomous plan executions, and uses BehaVerify to verify the mission's safety. Moreover, as a use case of this framework, we present a novel AI-enabled algorithm that aims for efficient, autonomous pipeline camera data collection. In a simulated environment, we demonstrate the framework's application to our proposed pipeline inspection algorithm. Our framework marks a significant step forward in the field of autonomous underwater robotics, promising to enhance the safety and success of underwater missions in practical, real-world applications. https://github.com/remaro-network/pipe_inspection_missio

Computer vision methods for underwater pipeline segmentation

Underwater pipeline inspection is usually conducted by Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) equipped mainly with optical and acoustic sensors. During long inspections periods and low visibility conditions, traditional visual inspection becomes a tedious job and can lead to operator misinterpretations. Therefore, the automation of this process involves an improvement in the maintenance of the pipelines. This work presents an underwater pipeline segmentation system for rigid pipelines using a monocular camera. A color based edge detector was proposed, taking advantage of the pipeline geometry restrictions, besides tracking information. Segmented pipelines were transformed into a 2D top view representation. The system was evaluated with a dataset containing 7808 images, manually annotated, acquired during real inspection tasks. The system reached 96.5% of detection rate and 96.3% of segmentation accuracy.O processo de inspeção de tubulações submarinas é geralmente realizado por Veículos Operados Remotamente (ROVs) equipados principalmente com sensores óticos e acústicos. Durante longos períodos de inspeção e em condições de baixa visibilidade, o processo de inspeção visual torna-se cansativo e sujeito a falhas de interpretação por parte do operador. Portanto, a automação desse processo apresenta uma melhoria na manutenção das tubulações. Este trabalho apresenta um sistema de segmentação de tubulações rígidas submarinas usando uma câmera monocular. Um detector de bordas baseado na cor foi proposto aproveitando as restrições da geometria das tubulações e informações de rastreamento. Tubulações segmentadas foram transformadas em uma representação de vista superior 2D. O sistema foi avaliado com um conjunto de dados de 7808 imagens, anotados manualmente, obtidas em diferentes tarefas de inspeção reais. O sistema obteve 96.5% na taxa de detecção e 96,3% de acurácia na segmentação