Visual System for Automated Inspection of Underwater Structures
Shahriar Negahdaripour and Pezhman Firoozfam
Problem
In-water inspection is an essential task in the general maintenance and damage assessment of underwater structures. For example, the inspection of a ship hull has always been the principal component of periodic maintenance routines. More recently, ship hull inspections have become extremely important in respect to homeland security in view of the threat that ships entering ports and harbors for commerce may serve as carriers of nuclear weapons, explosives, deadly chemicals and other hazardous materials. To combat the foregoing clear threat, the deployment of existing, and development of new, remote detection technologies have become a national priority.
Solution
The present invention is a system for visual inspection and mapping of underwater structures. The vision system consists of hardware for image data acquisition, processing, and displaying of information that consists of both raw images and processed data. The system can be installed on any unmanned remotely operated submersible platform.
Competitive Advantage
One of the major advantages of the present invention is that it provides a fully automated solution with high efficiency, reliability, and repeatability without exposing a human operator to potentially dangerous conditions.
Applications
This invention can be used for underwater structures inspection.
Patent Status
U.S. patent No.
US 7,496,226
entitled "MULTI-CAMERA INSPECTION OF UNDERWATER STRUCTURES" was granted February 24, 2009.
Licensing Opportunity
We are looking for a commercialization partner with core competency in underwater inspection technologies and with capabilities in product development, sales, and marketing. An exclusive worldwide license is available.
About the Inventors
Shahriar Negahdaripour, Ph.D. is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Miami. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at MIT, Cambridge, MA. Dr. Negahdaripour has over hundred publications in scientific journals and conference proceedings as well as 20 years of teaching and research experience. His research interests include underwater vision and imaging, and the automation of vehicle position and navigation, and target mapping capabilities for various underwater platforms and applications.
Pezhman Firoozfam received the B.Sc. degree in electrical/electronics engineering from
Khaje-Nasireddin Toosi (KNT) University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1994, the M.Sc. degree in bio-electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, in 2004. He has research interests in three-dimensional (3-D) motion estimation and scene reconstruction from N-Ocular and panoramic imagery for seafloor and underwater structures, as well as close-range imaging and computer vision. He has also been involved in different areas of geomatics engineering and photogrammetry for several years.
Selected References
S. Negahdaripour, H. Madjidi, "Stereovision Imaging on Submersible Platforms for 3-D Mapping of Benthic Habitats and Sea-Floor Structures," IEEE Journal Oceanic Engineering, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 625-650, 2003.
A. Khamene, S. Negahdaripour, "Motion and Structure from Multiple Cues; Image Motion, Shading Flow, and Stereo Disparity," to appear in Computer Vision and Image Understanding.
S. Negahdaripour, A. Khamene, H. Madjidi, "Stereovision imaging for 3-D mapping of the sea floor and benthic environments," Invited article in Sea Technology Magazine, August, 2002.
X. Xu, S. Negahdaripour, "Mosaic-based positioning and improved motion estimation methods for autonomous navigation," IEEE Journal Oceanic Engineering, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 79-99, 2002.
S. Negahdaripour, A. Khamene, "Motion-based compression of underwater video imagery for the operations of unmanned submersible vehicles," Computer Vision and Image Understanding: Special Issue on Underwater Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Vol. 79, pp. 162-183, No. 1, 2000.
S. Negahdaripour, X. Xu, L. Jin, "Direct estimation of motion from sea floor images for automatic station-keeping of submersible platforms," IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 370-382, 1999.
