Image Acquisition in an Underwater Vision System with NIR and VIS Illumination

TL;DR

This paper presents an underwater image acquisition system capturing images in visible and near-infrared spectra, aiding autonomous navigation by analyzing environmental characteristics and comparing image quality across channels.

Contribution

It introduces a dual-band underwater imaging system and evaluates its effectiveness for autonomous navigation in complex underwater environments.

Findings

Near-infrared images provide different environmental details than visible images.

The system successfully captures dual-spectrum images in underwater conditions.

Comparison results highlight the advantages of using NIR and VIS channels together.

Abstract

The paper describes the image acquisition system able to capture images in two separated bands of light, used to underwater autonomous navigation. The channels are: the visible light spectrum and near infrared spectrum. The characteristics of natural, underwater environment were also described together with the process of the underwater image creation. The results of an experiment with comparison of selected images acquired in these channels are discussed.