Building Qualitative Elevation Maps from Side Scan Sonar Data for Autonomous Underwater Navigation - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Building Qualitative Elevation Maps from Side Scan Sonar Data for Autonomous Underwater Navigation

Conference Paper, Proceedings of (ICRA) International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 3, pp. 2478 - 2483, April, 1991

Abstract

Deriving a terrain model from sensor data is an important task for the autonomous navigation of a mobile robot. This paper describes an approach for autonomous underwater vehicles using a side scan sonar system. First. some general aspects of the type of data and filtering techniques to improve it are discussed. We then proceed to derive an estimated bottom contour, using a geometric reflection model and information about shadows and highlights. Several techniques of surface reconstruction and their limitations are presented. We also describe a method of feature extraction which is important for future data matching/fusion procedures.

BibTeX

@conference{Langer-1991-13242,
author = {Dirk Langer and Martial Hebert},
title = {Building Qualitative Elevation Maps from Side Scan Sonar Data for Autonomous Underwater Navigation},
booktitle = {Proceedings of (ICRA) International Conference on Robotics and Automation},
year = {1991},
month = {April},
volume = {3},
pages = {2478 - 2483},
}