Short-Range Sensor for Underwater Robot Navigation using Line-lasers and Vision

This paper investigates a minimalistic laser-based range sensor, used for underwater inspection by Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). This range detection system system comprise two lasers projecting vertical lines, parallel to a camera's viewing axis, into the environment. Using both lasers for distance estimation, the sensor offers three dimensional interpretation of the environment. This is obtained by triangulation of points extracted from the image using the Hough Transform. We evaluate the system in simulation and by physical proof-of-concept experiments on an OpenROV platform.