Line Laser mounted Small Agent ROV based 3D Reconstruction Method for Precision Underwater Manipulation

We proposed a line laser based 3D reconstruction method for small agent ROV to perform precision underwater manipulation. Perception of the surrounding environment underwater is essential for manipulation. Especially for small underwater vehicles with relatively limited and weak sensors, it is very difficult to perform 3D reconstruction and manipulation of objects underwater. This paper proposed that a small agent ROV attached with a line laser performs 3D object reconstruction by rotating motion. In general, a line laser scan can be performed when an actuator moves the line laser or when the vehicle’s position can be accurately known. However, in a small underwater vehicle without such an actuator and a high-performance navigation sensor, a laser scan cannot be performed smoothly. Therefore, we devised a method that performs a line laser scan by rotating the vehicle around the object only by detecting the target object with the camera. We confirmed that the target objects could be 3D scanned using the line laser scan simulator. In addition, we carried out experiments in the water tank, and 3D reconstruction of three target objects was possible. As a result, we showed that our line laser scan method could perform underwater 3D reconstruction of target objects even for small underwater vehicles with few sensors.