Summary
Performing reliable localisation and navigation within highly unstructured underwater coral reef environments is a difficult task at the best of times. Typical research and commercial underwater vehicles use expensive acoustic positioning and sonar systems which require significant external infrastructure to operate effectively. This paper is focused on the development of a robust vision-based motion estimation technique using low-cost sensors for performing real-time autonomous and untethered environmental monitoring tasks in the Great Barrier Reef without the use of acoustic positioning. The technique is experimentally shown to provide accurate odometry and terrain profile information suitable for input into the vehicle controller to perform a range of environmental monitoring tasks.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
H. Adams, S. Singh, and D. Strelow. An empirical comparison of methods for image-based motion estimation. In Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE/IRJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, October 2002.
O. Amidi. An Autonomous Vision-Guided Helicopter. PhD thesis, Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, 1996.
J.Y. Bouguet. MATLAB camera calibration toolbox. In TR, 2000.
M. Bryant, D. Wettergreen, S. Abdallah, and A. Zelinsky. Robust camera calibration for an autonomous underwater vehicle. In Proceedings of the 2000 Australian Conference of Robotics and Automation, August 2000.
C. Charnley, G. Harris, M. Pike, E. Sparks, and M. Stephens. The droid 3d vision system–algorithms for geometric integration. Technical Report Tech. Rep. 72/88/N488U, Plessey Research Roke Manor, December 1988.
P. Corke. An inertial and visual sensing system for a small autonomous helicopter. Journal of Robotic Systems, 21(2):43–51, February 2004.
P.I. Corke, D. Strelow, and S. Singh. Omnidirectional visual odometry for a planetary rover. In Proceedings of IROS 2004, pages 4007–4012, 2004.
M. Dunbabin, P. Corke, and G. Buskey. Low-cost vision-based AUV guidance system for reef navigation. In Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, pages 7–12, April 2004.
M. Dunbabin, J. Roberts, Usher K., G. Winstanley, and P. Corke. A hybrid AUV design for shallow water reef navigation. In Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, April 2005.
R. Eustice, O. Pizarro, and H. Singh. Visually augmented navigation in an unstructured environment using a delay state history. In Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, pages 25–32, April 2004.
J. Lagarias, R. Reeds, and M. Wright. Convergence properties of the nelder-mead simplex method in low dimensions. SIAM Journal of Optimization, 9(1):112–147, 1998.
P. Rives and J-J. Borrelly. Visual servoing techniques applied to an underwater vehicle. In Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pages 1851–1856, April 1997.
J. M. Roberts. Attentive visual tracking and trajectory estimation for dynamic scene segmentation. PhD thesis, University of Southhampton, UK, 1994.
English S., C. Wilkinson, and V. Baker, editors. Survey manual for tropical marine resources. Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia, 1994.
J. Santos-Victor and G. Sandini. Visual behaviors for docking. Computer Vision and Image Understanding, 67(3):223–238, September 1997.
S. van der Zwaan, A. Bernardino, and J. Santos-Victor. Visual station keeping for floating robots in unstructured ennvironments. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 39:145–155, 2002.
L. Whitcomb, D. Yoerger, H. Singh, and J. Howland. Advances in underwater robot vehicles for deep ocean exploration: Navigation, control and survey operations. In Proceedings of Ninth International Syposium of Robotics Research (ISRR’99), pages 346–353, October 9–12 1999.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Dunbabin, M., Usher, K., Corke, P. (2006). Visual Motion Estimation for an Autonomous Underwater Reef Monitoring Robot. In: Corke, P., Sukkariah, S. (eds) Field and Service Robotics. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 25. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33453-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-33453-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-33452-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-33453-8
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)