Real-Time Estimation of Dominant Motion in Underwater Video Images for Dynamic Positioning

In this paper, we propose a 2D visual motion estimation method which can be exploited to achieve a dynamic positioning (eg. by gaze control) with respect to a sea-bottom area of interest of a video camera mounted on a subsea vehicle. It mainly involves a dominant 2D motion robust estimation step from underwater video sequences. Optimizations carried out on the motion estimation code have made possible the use of our algorithm in \application-related real-time" for scienti c exploration or inspection tasks. We have developed a friendly and e cient interface to perform this algorithm in an operational context. Experiments dealing with complex real underwater scenes are reported and validate the approach.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ICRA
• Authors: Fabien Spindler, Patrick Bouthemy
• Keywords: ICRA 1998, Motion Estimation, Motion Estimation Method, Motion Robust Estimation, Robotics