Underwater Wide-Area Layered Light Field for Underwater Detection

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 6; pp. 63915 - 63922
• Main Authors: Mengnan Sun, Zhaorui Gu, Haiyong Zheng, Bing Zheng, Watson, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Attenuation coefficients; Backscatter; Backscattering; Charge coupled devices; Depth of field; Field of view; Image quality; Imaging; Light; light field; Light sources; Lighting; Mathematical model; object detection; Object recognition; optical imaging; Scattering; Target detection; Underwater; underwater detection; Underwater exploration; Underwater technology
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2877591

In underwater electro-optic detection, image quality can be degraded by the backscattering of light from the illuminated water volume. In practical systems, we tend to simultaneously require a high level of detection distance (DD), field of view (FOV), and depth of field (DOF), but these factors influence each other by the media scattering. To eliminate this restriction, we propose to explore the underwater wide-area layered light field (UWLLF), which classifies the underwater detection area by the DD and distribution characteristics of the light field, to minimize the scattering influence on target detection. Based on the UWLLF, an underwater electro-optic detection system is designed that can achieve the specifications of a 70° FOV and 7.9-fold attenuation length (for the attenuation coefficient 1.43 /m of 532 nm) DD. In addition, with the spatial separation of light energy, the non-detection zone at short ranges is eliminated, yielding an almost full DOF. With these three factors simultaneously improved, the ability of underwater exploration for object detection is enhanced.