Development and Applications of a Novel Underwater Laser Illumination System

摘要

Severely limited underwater viewing remains a problem in the operation of remotely operated vehicles. The recent availability of compact, diode-pumped green lasers has led to a renewed interest in the synchronous volume scanning technique as a means of overcoming some of the viewing problems. However, one of the limitations with synchronous scanning is the limited depth of field achieved because of the optical arrangement used. In an attempt to overcome this problem, an underwater laser illumination system has been developed at Cranfield University. Stripes of laser light are used to illuminate a target and images from a conventional camera are processed to produce a computer generated composite image. The system has been evaluated in an underwater laboratory and at various open-water sites. Such a computer-integrated approach to underwater viewing has applications in areas such as macro- and micro-navigation and these are discussed.