Target recognition using rotating ultrasonic sensor for an amphibious ROV

Abstract

Abstract Recognition and tracking of nearby obstacle targets in the inshore environment are necessary for the driving of amphibious remotely operated vehicles (ROV). In this study, the underwater target recognition and tracking in front of the ROV was conducted with a cost-effective waterproof rotating ultrasonic sensing system. An empirical detection model was developed to establish the detection characteristics of the ultrasonic sensor in the turbid underwater environment. The feature extraction of the underwater targets was performed with the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise. The maximum relative error of targets geometric feature recognition is 3.85%. The target tracking algorithm was designed based on the Kalman filter. The rotating ultrasonic sensing system was further applied and validated on a full size amphibious tracked ROV in the turbid underwater environment. The experimental results show that the maximum recognition error during the straight movement is less than 5% after Kalman filter processing. The validity of the DBSCAN and Kalman filtering algorithms is verified during the driving of the amphibious ROV.