• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
• /
• v.47 no.2
• /
• pp.196-209
• /
• 2010

For the analysis of Acoustic Target Strength(TS) that indicates the scattered acoustic intensity from the underwater vehicles, an analysis program that is applicable to scatterers insonified by spherical wave source in near field is developed. In this program, the Physical Optics(PO) method is embedded as a base component. To increase the accuracy of the program, multiple bounce effects based on Geometrical Optics(GO) method are applied. To implement multiple bounce effects, GO method is used together with PO method. In detail, GO method has a concern in the evaluation of the effective area, and PO method is involved in the calculation of Acoustic Target Strength for the final effective area that is evaluated by GO method. For the embodiment of near field spherical wave source originated multiple bounce effects, image source concept is implemented additively to the existing multiple bounce algorithm which assumes plane wave insonification. Various types of models are tested to evaluate the reliability of the developed program and finally, a submarine is analyzed as an arbitrary scatterer.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.3E
• /
• pp.104-110
• /
• 2007

As the exploration of the seabed is extended ever further, automated recognition and classification of sonar images become increasingly important. However, most of the methods ignore the directional information and its effect on the image textures produced. To deal with this problem, we apply 2D Gabor filters to extract the features of sonar images. The filters are designed with constrained parameters to reduce the complexity and to improve the calculation efficiency. Meanwhile, at each orientation, the optimal Gabor filter parameters will be selected with the help of bandwidth parameters based on the Fisher criterion. This method can overcome some disadvantages of the traditional approaches of extracting texture features, and improve the recognition rate effectively.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.27 no.3E
• /
• pp.77-83
• /
• 2008

In the process of the sonar image textures produced, the orientation and scale factors are very significant. However, most of the related methods ignore the directional information and scale invariance or just pay attention to one of them. To overcome this problem, we apply Gabor wavelet to extract the features of sonar images, which combine the advantages of both the Gabor filter and traditional wavelet function. The mother wavelet is designed with constrained parameters and the optimal parameters will be selected at each orientation, with the help of bandwidth parameters based on the Fisher criterion. The Gabor wavelet can have the properties of both multi-scale and multi-orientation. Based on our experiment, this method is more appropriate than traditional wavelet or single Gabor filter as it provides the better discrimination of the textures and improves the recognition rate effectively. Meanwhile, comparing with other fusion methods, it can reduce the complexity and improve the calculation efficiency.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.679-687
• /
• 2019

This paper presents the autonomous swimming technology developed for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) operating in the underwater jacket structure environment. To prevent the position divergence of the inertial navigation system constructed for the primary navigation solution for the vehicle, we've developed kinds of marker-recognition based underwater localization methods using both of optical and acoustic cameras. However, these two methods all require the artificial markers to be located near to the cameras mounted on the vehicle. Therefore, in the case of the vehicle far away from the structure where the markers are usually mounted on, we may need alternative position-aiding solution to guarantee the navigation accuracy. For this purpose, we develop a sonar image processing based underwater localization method using a Forward Looking Sonar (FLS) mounted in front of the vehicle. The primary purpose of this FLS is to detect the obstacles in front of the vehicle. According to the detected obstacle(s), we apply an Occupancy Grid Map (OGM) based path planning algorithm to derive an obstacle collision-free reference path. Experimental studies are carried out in the water tank and also in the Pohang Yeongilman port sea environment to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed autonomous swimming technology.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2008.06a
• /
• pp.89-90
• /
• 2008

We present an implementation and it's real-sea test of an underwater acoustic communication system, which allows the system to reduce complexity and increase robustness in time variant underwater environments. For easy adaptation to complicated and time-varying environments of the ocean, all-digital transmitter and receiver systems were implemented. For frame synchronization the CAZAC sequence was used, and QPSK modulation/demodulation method with carrier frequency of 25kHz and a bandwidth of 5kHz were applied to generate 10kbps transmission rate including overhead. To improve transmission quality, we used several techniques and algorithms such as adaptive beamforming, adaptive equalizer, and convolution coding/Viterbi decoding. For the verification of the system performance, measurement of BER has been done in a very shallow water with depth of 20m at JangMok, Geoje. During the experiment, image data were successfully transmitted up to about 9.6km.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.467-476
• /
• 2003

For the seafloor acoustic image mapping of side scan sonar, the beginning step of the procedure is to fix the absolute sonar (tow-fish) position since the sonar is not hull mounted but towed astern. The technical algorithm used to calculate the actual sonar position without any other additional sub-system, i.e., the underwater acoustic position tracking system or the sonar attitude measuring device, was proposed. In the seafloor image mosaic mapping results using the sonar track (not ship track) developed in this study, any ambiguity or inconsistency of seafloor features was not found. The incidental effect from the sonar position determination procedure orients the towing direction of sonar to be smooth, consequently the swath pattern on the across-track direction becomes stable and the blanking phenomenon of the insonification area is reduced conspicuously. This technical method is considered to be an useful tool when applied toother underwater towing vehicle surveys.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.7
• /
• pp.923-928
• /
• 2014

Communication underwater is severely limited when compared to communications in air because water is essentially opaque to electromagnetic radiation except in visible range. Acoustic systems are capable of long range communication, but offer limited data rates and significant latency due to the speed of sound in water. On the other hand, optical wireless communication has been proposed as one of the best alternatives to meet the requirements of the underwater observation and subsea monitoring systems. It will help In this study, we are developing an underwater optical communication system that integrates with a depot ship floating on the water. An interface between LED lighting communication system and Bluetooth module is presented to support the underwater-to-air communications. Error free image and text transmission at 3 m of water were achieved at bit rates of 230.4 kbps. This development effort will enhance infrastructure to efficiently interconnect between underwater wireless systems and command ship networks for underwater monitoring.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
• /
• 2003.05a
• /
• pp.89-93
• /
• 2003

The Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO), the ocean engineering branch of KORDI, has designed and manufactured a model of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to test underwater docking. This paper introduces the AUV model, ASUM, equipped with a visual servo control system to dock into an underwater station with a camera and motion sensors. To make a visual servoing AUV, this paper implemented the visual servo control system designed with an augmented state equation, which was composed of the optical flow model of a camera and the equation of the AUV's motion. The system design and the hardware configuration of ASUM are presented in this paper. A small long baseline acoustic positioning system was developed to monitor and record the AUV's position for the experiment in the Ocean Engineering Basin of KRISO, KORDI. ASUM recognizes the target position by processing the captured image for the lights, which are installed around the end of the cone-type entrance of the duct. Unfortunately, experiments are not yet conducted when we write this article. The authors will present the results for the docking test of the AUV in near future.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.51 no.4
• /
• pp.181-190
• /
• 2014

The underwater acoustic lens system is one of the systems getting high-resolution images on the seafloor by the beam forming method using acoustic lens. The beam forming using acoustic lenses reduces complexity and driving power. When receiving an incoming beam with the acoustic lens array, beam pattern analysis and arrangement problem of the array sensor must be addressed. Introducing SIR (Signal to Interference Ratio), the relationship among sensor interval, beam pattern and image quality would be analyzed. Generally if the sensor interval getting wider, the less effect of the side lobes makes SIR high. If the amplitude of a side lobe is high, SIR is generally getting low. The type of the apodization function changes the width, shape and amplitude of both main lobe and side lobes. Thus an appropriate apodization function can improve SIR. In this paper, SIR is stable at the sensor interval of 13mm with 0-10dB, which is not high relatively. By applying the Chebyshev function, the SIR becomes 80dB over the sensor interval of 37 mm or higher. The Hann and triangular functions demonstrate better SIR when the sensor interval becomes narrower.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.64 no.7
• /
• pp.1081-1087
• /
• 2015

Recently, the researches of aerial drones are actively executed in various areas, the researches of surface drones and underwater drones are also executed in marine areas. In case of surface drones, they essentially utilize acoustic information by the sonar and consequently have the local information in the obstacle avoidance as the sonar has the limitations due to the beam width and detection range. In order to overcome this, more global method that utilizes optical images by the camera is required. Related to this, the aerial drone with the camera is desirable as the obstacle detection of the surface drone with the camera is impossible in case of the existence of clutters. However, the dynamic-floating aerial drone is not desirable for the long-term operation as its power consumption is high. To solve this problem, a collaborative obstacle avoidance method based on the acoustic information by the sonar of the surface drone and the optical image by the camera of the static-floating aerial drone is proposed. To verify the performance of the proposed method, the collaborative obstacle avoidances of a MSD(Micro Surface Drone) with an OAS(Obstacle Avoidance Sonar) and a BMAD(Balloon-based Micro Aerial Drone) with a camera are executed. The test results show the possibility of real applications and the need for additional studies.