Underwater cable shape detection using ShapeTape

This paper describes a method for detecting and tracking underwater cables using ShapeTape (Measurand Inc., Canada). ShapeTape is a light weight, flexible ribbon which senses the bend and twist along its length. The ability of ShapeTape to detect underwater cables was carried out in a water tank. A mean absolute error and similarity analysis were performed to evaluate the detection accuracy. The results of analysis indicated that the errors between fitting curve of detected data and the observational curve were acceptable. And these results demonstrate the feasibility of ShapeTape for underwater cable detection.