Algorithmic Design and Implementation of Unobtrusive Multistatic Serial LiDAR Image

TL;DR

This paper introduces UMSLI, an automated underwater LiDAR imaging system that combines hardware and software to monitor marine animals near turbines effectively.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated LiDAR-based imaging system with hierarchical processing for underwater animal detection and classification.

Findings

Effective detection of marine animals near turbines

Hierarchical image processing improves accuracy

Real-time monitoring capability

Abstract

To fully understand interactions between marine hydrokinetic (MHK) equipment and marine animals, a fast and effective monitoring system is required to capture relevant information whenever underwater animals appear. A new automated underwater imaging system composed of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) imaging hardware and a scene understanding software module named Unobtrusive Multistatic Serial LiDAR Imager (UMSLI) to supervise the presence of animals near turbines. UMSLI integrates the front end LiDAR hardware and a series of software modules to achieve image preprocessing, detection, tracking, segmentation and classification in a hierarchical manner.