Vision-based underwater cable detection and following using AUVs

In this paper, cable detection and tracking algorithm is presented. A detailed description on how to overcome the two practical problems encountered in optical vision based cable following systems in underwater environments is presented. The two main problems considered are; namely (1) navigation of AUV when cable is invisible in the image, and (2) selection of the correct cable (interested feature) when there are similar features appearing in the image. The proposed sensor fusion scheme uses dead reckoning position uncertainty with a 2D position model of the cable to predict the region of interest in the image. This reduces the processing data increasing the processing speed and avoids tracking other similar features appearing in the optical image. The proposed method uses a priori map of the cable for AUV navigation when the cable features are invisible in the predicted region in the image. An experiment is conducted to test the performance of the proposed algorithm using the AUV "Twin-Burger 2". A behavior-based technique is used for the navigation of the AUV. The experimental results presented in this paper show how the proposed method handles the above-mentioned practical problems and navigate the AUV along the underwater cable.