Autonomous Underwater Vehicle: Vision System

This thesis examines the design and implementation of a vision system for an autonomous underwater vehicle. The vision system consists of three cameras, two being a stereo pair, and the third being attached to a pan/tilt unit to allow it to track moving targets. The goals for the development of the vision system were to: • Design and build all of the hardware for the vision system. The main focus of work in this area was to design watertight camera housing to attach the two stereo cameras to the frame of the AUV. • Interface all of the cameras with the on-board computer, and the optical fibre link to the surface. • Develop software to allow the vision system to be used as a navigational aid for the submersible. To do this a range estimation system was implemented for use with the stereo cameras. A feature tracking system was also implemented to allow the AUV to track moving targets, either by moving the pan/tilt camera, or by moving the whole AUV.