Extraction of 3D information from sonar image sequences

This paper describes a set of methods that make it possible to estimate the position of a feature inside a three-dimensional (3D) space by starting from a sequence of two-dimensional (2D) acoustic images of the seafloor acquired with a sonar system. Typical sonar imaging systems are able to generate just 2D images, and the acquisition of 3D information involves sharp increases in complexity and costs. The front-scan sonar proposed in this paper is a new equipment devoted to acquiring a 2D image of the seafloor to sail over, and allows one to collect a sequence of images showing a specific feature during the approach of the ship. This fact seems to make it possible to recover the 3D position of a feature by comparing the feature positions along the sequence of images acquired from different (known) ship positions. This opportunity is investigated in the paper, where it is shown that encouraging results have been obtained by a processing chain composed of some blocks devoted to low-level processing, feature extraction and analysis, a Kalman filter for robust feature tracking, and some ad hoc equations for depth estimation and averaging. A statistical error analysis demonstrated the great potential of the proposed system also if some inaccuracies affect the sonar measures and the knowledge of the ship position. This was also confirmed by several tests performed on both simulated and real sequences, obtaining satisfactory results on both the feature tracking and, above all, the estimation of the 3D position.     

Mobile robot map making using sonar

This article describes a method of producing high-resolution maps of an indoor environment with an autonomous mobile robot equipped with sonar range-finding sensors. This method is based on investigating obstacles in the near vicinity of a mobile robot. The mobile robot examines the straight line segments extracted from the sonar range data describing obstacles near the robot. The mobile robot then moves parallel to the straight line sonar segments, in close proximity to the obstacles, continually applying sonar barrier test. The sonar barrier test exploits the physical constraints of sonar data, and eliminates noisy data. This test determines whether or not a sonar line segment is a true obstacle edge or a false reflection. Low resolution sonar sensors can be used with the method described. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated using a Denning Corp. Mobile Robot, equipped with a ring of Polaroid Corp. Ultrasonic Rangefinders.     

Heterogeneous multisensor fusion for mapping dynamic environments

In this paper, we propose a heterogeneous multisensor fusion algorithm for mapping in dynamic environments. The algorithm synergistically integrates the information obtained from an uncalibrated camera and sonar sensors to facilitate mapping and tracking. The sonar data is mainly used to build a weighted line-based map via the fuzzy clustering technique. The line weight, with confidence corresponding to the moving object, is determined by both sonar and vision data. The motion tracking is primarily accomplished by vision data using particle filtering and the sonar vectors originated from moving objects are used to modulate the sample weighting. A fuzzy system is implemented to fuse the two sensor data features. Additionally, in order to build a consistent global map and maintain reliable tracking of moving objects, the well-known extended Kalman filter is applied to estimate the states of robot pose and map features. Thus, more robust performance in mapping as well as tracking are achieved. The empirical results carried out on the Pioneer 2DX mobile robot demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the methods a using homogeneous sensor, in mapping as well as tracking behaviors.     

Model-based sonar localisation for mobile robots

We describe a sonar localisation system for autonomous mobile robot navigation in a known environment, which tries to extract as much information as possible from the sensors by building a detailed probabilistic model of each sonar event. It takes account of multiple hypotheses about the source of each signal and uses a probabilistic sensor fusion technique to merge the results into a single location update. The system is designed to run under our decentralised, highly parallel vehicle architecture, and we discuss some of the implementation techniques required to achieve this. The results of some initial simulations are presented.     

单波束前视声纳的信息提取方法研究

介绍了一种可用于小型水下机器人的前视声纳信息提取方法。利用该方法获取了声纳视域内目标的方位信息,这在小型水下机器人的自主目标跟踪和避碰方面具有很大的应用价值。该方法主要包括3个部分的内容:利用声纳数据生成声纳图像;对声纳图像进行预处理;从处理后的图像中提取目标的特征信息。针对图像中较大目标的边缘信息,提出了一种基于最小二乘法的分段曲线拟合的方法,并给出了基于实验室的水池中获得的实测数据的拟合结果,验证了该方法的有效性。     

Investigating abandoned limestone mines in the West Midlands of England with scanning sonar

The use of remotely controlled scanning sonar is described as a site investigation tool in cavity surveillance. Abandoned and flooded limestone mineworkings beneath a proposed road in the West Midlands have been inspected; the resulting sonar records have been tested and matched with the only known abandonment plans of the mine. The use of Sonar enables the current status of the mine, pillars, roof and rooms to be assessed thoroughly before ground improvement and stabilization take place     

Novel Sonar Salient Feature Structure for Extended Kalman Filter-Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping of Mobile Robots

Abstract

Not all line or point features capable of being extracted by sonar sensors from a cluttered home environment are useful for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) of a mobile robot. This is due to unfavorable conditions such as environmental ambiguity and sonar measurement uncertainty. We present a novel sonar feature structure suitable for a cluttered environment and the extended Kalman filter (EKF)-based SLAM scheme. The key concept is to extract circle feature clouds on salient convex objects by sonar data association called convex saliency circling. The centroid of each circle cloud, called a sonar salient feature, is used as a natural landmark for EKF-based SLAM. By investigating the environmental inherent feature locality, cylindrical objects are augmented conveniently at the weak SLAM-able area as a natural supplementary saliency to achieve consistent SLAM performance. Experimental results demonstrate the validity and robustness of the proposed sonar salient feature structure for EKF-based SLAM.     

Sonar Sensor-Based Efficient Exploration Method Using Sonar Salient Features and Several Gains

This paper describes a sonar sensor-based exploration method. To build an accurate map in an unknown environment during exploration, a simultaneous localization and mapping problem must be solved. Therefore, a new type of sonar feature called a ??sonar salient feature?? (SS-feature), is proposed for robust data association. The key concept of an SS-feature is to extract circle feature clouds on salient convex objects from environments by associating sets of sonar data. The SS-feature is used as an observation in the extended Kalman filter (EKF)-based SLAM framework. A suitable strategy is needed to efficiently explore the environment. We used utilities of driving cost, expected information about an unknown area, and localization quality. Through this strategy, the exploration method can greatly reduce behavior that leads a robot to explore a previously visited place, and thus shorten the exploration distance. A robot can select a favorable path for localization by localization gain during exploration. Thus, the robot can estimate its pose more robustly than other methods that do not consider localizability during exploration. This proposed exploration method was verified by various experiments, and it ensures that a robot can build an accurate map fully autonomously with sonar sensors in various home environments.     

基于Qt的多通道宽带接收机测试系统设计

接收机是声纳系统的重要组成部分,为了满足工程开发和批量生产对接收机各项性能指标的自动化检测需求,本文设计了多通道宽带接收机测试系统。通过操作Qt编程环境设计的交互界面,即可完成整个测试过程,并将测试结果输出。本系统具有操作便捷、测试准确等优点,显著提高了系统开发过程中的工作效率,满足接收机性能指标的测试需求。本文主要介绍了系统设计方案、硬件及软件设计和待测指标的测试方法与实现,该系统能够普遍应用于声纳接收机测试。     

多用户VDSL2系统远端串扰抵消算法

随着宽带接入网速率提升,VDSL2技术成为最后一公里的主流接入方式。用户数量急剧增加使传输线路之间串扰成为制约VDSL2系统性能的重要因素,线路之间串扰分为近端串扰（NEXT）和远端串扰（FEXT）,VDSL2系统采用正交频分复用调制技术,近端串扰可以通过滤波器滤除,远端串扰却无法消除。主要研究VDSL2系统远端串扰噪声消除的方法,提出远端串扰噪声如何进行评估和计算,推导出远端串扰噪声计算公式,通过公式可以计算出每条线路受到其他线路串扰噪声的大小,然后发送信号时通过串扰噪声预抵消运算,接收到的信号就能成功消除串扰噪声的影响,提高了接收信号的SNR值,进而提升了VDSL2传输速率。     

Very-high resolution side-scan sonar mapping of biogenic reefs of the tube-worm Lanice conchilega

Reefs of the tube-building polychaete Lanice conchilega are known to represent hotspots of biodiversity within inter- and subtidal soft sediments of the North Sea. However, because of their patchy distribution, point sampling does not appropriately map their subtidal spatial distribution. This study evaluated the feasibility to detect L. conchilega reefs by very-high resolution side-scan sonar imagery. A subtidal very-high resolution (410 kHz) side-scan survey, combined with grab sampling, revealed high densities of L. conchilega (up to 1979 ind. m^? 2) to coincide with a higher reflectivity, patchy and grainy acoustic facies. From the side-scan sonar imagery, individual reefs were estimated to reach a maximum size of 15 m². To ground truth the acoustic facies, the distribution of intertidal L. conchilega reefs was mapped at low tide and side-scan sonar imagery was recorded during the following high tide. Intertidal L. conchilega reefs had a patch size of 0.8 m² up to 11.6 m², elevated 7.5 to 11.5 cm above the surrounding seafloor and covered approximately 10% of the selected area. The very-high (445 kHz) resolution side-scan sonar imagery revealed a similar acoustic facies as in the subtidal. Lower-resolution (132 kHz) side-scan sonar imagery was less efficient to detect physically less developed L. conchilega reefs. We conclude that (1) there are no major technical restrictions to map L. conchilega reefs using side-scan sonar, (2) the developmental stage of L. conchilega reefs impacts the detectability of the reefs, and (3) very-high resolution side-scan sonar imagery is considered a necessity when mapping small-scale structures, such as L. conchilega reefs.     

基于NSCT循环抽样的声纳图像去噪方法

针对声纳图像对比度差、不易判别边缘及细节的特点,提出一种有效的声纳图像去噪方法。对含噪声纳图像循环抽样后得到多幅声纳图像,分别执行NSCT变换,选取适当的阈值对变换的系数进行取值,筛选后的系数进行NSCT逆变换;将得到的多幅去噪后的图像空域平均后输出去噪后的图像。通过实验数据比较,此改进算法好于其他经典方法,提高了处理结果的信噪比及边缘保持效果。由于充分利用了NSCT变换的平移不变性,使去噪后的细节保护能力增强。     

A new multisensor fusion SLAM approach for mobile robots

This paper presents a novel method, which enhances the use of external mechanisms by considering a multisensor system, composed of sonars and a CCD camera. Monocular vision provides redundant information about the location of the geometric entities detected by the sonar sensors. To reduce ambiguity significantly, an improved and more detailed sonar model is utilized. Moreover, Hough transform is used to extract features from raw sonar data and vision image. Information is fused at the level of features. This technique significantly improves the reliability and precision of the environment observations used for the simultaneous localization and map building problem for mobile robots. Experimental results validate the favorable performance of this approach.     

基于FPGA的声呐信号数字预处理机的设计

介绍了一种基于单片FPGA的声呐信号数字预处理机设计方案。系统可以对30路换能器输出的模拟信号进行同步采样,采样数据在FPGA中依次进行正交解调、FIR滤波、波束形成等声呐信号预处理计算,减轻了上位机计算任务,解决了多阵元声呐设备中数据采集速度和数据处理速度难以匹配的瓶颈。     

Improved occupancy grid mapping in specular environment

This paper addresses the improved method for sonar sensor modeling which reduces the specular reflection uncertainty in the occupancy grid. Such uncertainty reduction is often required in the occupancy grid mapping where the false sensory information can lead to poor performance. Here, a novel algorithm is proposed which is capable of discarding the unreliable sonar sensor information generated due to specular reflection. Further, the inconsistency estimation in sonar measurement has been evaluated and eliminated by fuzzy rules based model. To achieve the grid map with improved accuracy, the sonar information is further updated by using a Bayesian approach. In this paper the approach is experimented for the office environment and the model is used for grid mapping. The experimental results show 6.6% improvement in the global grid map and it is also found that the proposed approach is consuming nearly 16.5% less computation time as compared to the conventional approach of occupancy grid mapping for the indoor environments.     

A New Sonar-based Landmark for Localization in Indoor Environments

This paper presents a new sonar based landmark to represent significant places in an environment for localization purposes. This landmark is based on extracting the contour free of obstacles around the robot from a local evidence grid. This contour is represented by its curvature, calculated by a noise-resistant function which adapts to the natural scale of the contour at each point. Then, curvature is reduced to a short feature vector by using Principal Component Analysis. The landmark calculation method has been successfully tested in a medium scale real environment using a Pioneer robot with Polaroid sonar sensors.     

Mobile robot localization using sonar

This correspondence describes a method by which range data from a sonar rangefinder can be used to determine the two-dimensional position and orientation of a mobile robot inside a room. The plan of the room is modeled as a list of segments indicating the positions of walls. The algorithm works by correlating straight segments in the range data against the room model, then eliminating implausible configurations using the sonar barrier test, which exploits physical constraints on sonar data. The approach is extremely tolerant of noise and clutter. Transient objects such as furniture and people need not be included in the room model, and very noisy, low-resolution sensors can be used. The algorithm's performance is demonstrated using a Polaroid Ultrasonic Rangefinder.     

水下目标的声纳回波数据仿真

对水下静态小目标的声纳回波信号进行了仿真研究。针对水下静态小目标中典型的圆柱壳体加球冠形头部的结构,建立了该类目标声纳回波信号的亮点模型,以及声纳系统走航探测时的动态数据模型。在计算仿真数据时,将模型化的目标回波数据与真实的水声背景混响数据相融合,更真实的模拟实际情况。通过与湖海试实验结果的对比,该模型仿真效果良好,可以为声纳信号处理、水下目标识别等方面的研究提供支持。     

被动声纳组网系统模型的构建及可视化仿真

为解决在海洋中大范围侦察和监视目标的问题,对声纳组网进行建模和仿真:给出了被动声纳基阵布阵的两种方法;应用单个被动声纳测向,两个或两个以上的被动声纳阵求解目标运动参数;考虑到声传播损失受海况的影响,对传播损失采用通用计算公式;对被动声纳接收到的信号进行谱分析,利用数据库对目标进行识别,达到实时大范围侦察和监视的目的.依次进行建模,利用Visual C 编制仿真程序,使仿真数据可视化.结果表明上述方法在被动声纳组网仿真中是可行的和有效的.     

Mobile robot relocation from echolocation constraints

This paper presents a method for relocation of a mobile robot using sonar data. The process of determining the pose of a mobile robot with respect to a global reference frame in situations where no a priori estimate of the robot's location is available is cast as a problem of searching for correspondences between measurements and an a priori map of the environment. A physically-based sonar sensor model is used to characterize the geometric constraints provided by echolocation measurements of different types of objects. Individual range returns are used as data features in a constraint-based search to determine the robot's position. A hypothesize and test technique is employed in which positions of the robot are calculated from all possible combinations of two range returns that satisfy the measurement model. The algorithm determines the positions which provide the best match between the range returns and the environment model. The performance of the approach is demonstrated using data from both a single scanning Polaroid sonar and from a ring of Polaroid sonar sensors