Design and Implementation of a 3D Undersea Camera System

Abstract

In this paper, we present the design and development of an undersea camera system. The goal of our system is to provide a 3D model of the undersea habitat in a long-term continuous manner. The most important feature of our system is the use of multiple cameras and multiple projectors, which is able to provide accurate 3D models with an accuracy of a millimeter. By introducing projectors in our system, we can use many different structured light methods for different tasks. There are two main advantages comparing our system with using ROVs or AUVs. First, our system can provide continuous monitoring of the undersea habitat. Second, our system has a low hardware cost. Comparing to existing deployed camera systems, the advantage of our system is that it can provide accurate 3D models and provides opportunities for future development of innovative algorithms for undersea research.