Planar surfaces are commonly found in man-made underwater environments and can be employed to support underwater SLAM. This work focuses on 3D plane extraction, building on two-dimensional acoustic scans collected from an imaging sonar. The novel contribution of our algorithm exploits the sonar’s wider beamwidth and ability to collect secondary echoes from these structures to extract a three-dimensional surface from the acquired acoustic image. Building on a Hough Transform-based algorithm adapted to polar-based acoustic imagery, line feature detection supports plane representation segmentation. An inverse sensor model is subsequently employed to estimate additional plane parameters: inclination, length, and height. Experimental assessment in a confined controlled environment is introduced, validating the accuracy of the algorithm. Additional results from a dam shaft scenario are also presented to assess the potential of the developed tool.

Lack of information and perceptual ambiguity are key problems in sonar-based mapping applications. We propose a technique for mapping of underwater environments, building on the finite, positive, sonar beamwidth. Our approach models the free-space covered by each emitted acoustic pulse, employing volumetric techniques to create grid-based submaps of the unoccupied water volumes through images collected from imaging sonars. A representation of the occupied space is obtained by exploration of the free-space frontier. Special attention is given to acoustic image preparation and segmentation. Experimental results are provided based on real data collected from a dam shaft scenario.

The calibration of sensors stationed along a cable in marine observatories is a time-consuming and expensive operation that involves taking the mooring out of the water periodically. In this paper, we present a method that allows an underwater vehicle to approach a mooring, in order to take reference measurements along the cable for in-situ sensor calibration. We use the vehicle's Mechanically Scanned Imaging Sonar (MSIS) to identify the cable's reflection within the sonar image. After pre-processing the image to remove noise, enhance contour lines, and perform smoothing, we employ three detection steps: 1) selection of regions of interest that fit the cable's reflection pattern, 2) template matching, and 3) a track-before-detect scheme that utilized the vehicle's motion. The later involves building a lattice of template matching responses for a sequence of sonar images, and using the Viterbi algorithm to find the most probable sequence of cable locations that fits the maximum speed assumed for the surveying vessel. Performance is explored in pool and sea trials, and involves an MSIS onboard an underwater vehicle scanning its surrounding to identify a steel-core cable. The results show a sub-meter accuracy in the multi-reverberant pool environment and in the sea trial. For reproducibility, we share our implementation code.

The use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) is increasingly seen as a cost-effective way to carry out underwater missions. Due to their long endurance and set of sensors onboard, AUVs may collect large amounts of data, in the order of Gbytes, which need to be transferred to shore. State of the art wireless technologies suffer either from low bitrates or limited range. Since surfacing may be unpractical, especially for deep sea operations, long-range underwater data transfer is limited to the use of low bitrate acoustic communications, precluding the timely transmission of large amounts of data. The use of data mules combined with short-range, high bitrate RF or optical communications has been proposed as a solution to overcome the problem.In this paper we describe the implementation and validation of UDMSim, a simulation platform for underwater data muling oriented systems that combines an AUV simulator and the Network Simulator 3 (ns-3). The results presented in this paper show a good match between UDMSim, a theoretical model, and the experimental results obtained by using an underwater testbed when no localization errors exist. When these errors are present, the simulator is able to reproduce the navigation of AUVs that act as data mules, adjust the throughput, and simulate the signal and connection losses that the theoretical model can not predict, but that will occur in reality. UDMSim is made available to the community to support easy and faster evaluation of data muling oriented underwater communications solutions, and enable offline replication of real world experiments.