Findings from a Combined Subsea LiDAR and Multibeam Survey at Kingston Reef, Western Australia

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), a comparatively new technology in the field of underwater surveying, has principally been used for taking precise measurement of undersea structures in the oil and gas industry. Typically, the LiDAR is deployed on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which will “la...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-08, Vol.12 (15), p.2443
Main Authors: Collings, Simon, Martin, Tara J., Hernandez, Emili, Edwards, Stuart, Filisetti, Andrew, Catt, Gavin, Marouchos, Andreas, Boyd, Matt, Embry, Carl
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Aerial photography
Autonomous underwater vehicles
Backscattering
benthic habitat mapping
Collaboration
Echo sounding
Echosounders
Global navigation satellite system
Habitats
Lasers
Lidar
Mapping
multibeam
Navigation systems
New technology
Ocean floor
Oil and gas industry
Remotely operated vehicles
robot navigation
Sensors
Simultaneous localization and mapping
SLAM
Sonar
subsea LiDAR
Surveying
Three dimensional models
Undersea
Underwater vehicles
Vehicles
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Summary:Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), a comparatively new technology in the field of underwater surveying, has principally been used for taking precise measurement of undersea structures in the oil and gas industry. Typically, the LiDAR is deployed on a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), which will “land” on the seafloor in order to generate a 3D point cloud of its environment from a stationary position. To explore the potential of subsea LiDAR on a moving platform in an environmental context, we deployed an underwater LiDAR system simultaneously with a multibeam echosounder (MBES), surveying Kingston Reef off the coast of Rottnest Island, Western Australia. This paper compares and summarises the relative accuracy and characteristics of underwater LiDAR and multibeam sonar and investigates synergies between sonar and LiDAR technology for the purpose of benthic habitat mapping and underwater simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). We found that LiDAR reflectivity and multibeam backscatter are complementary technologies for habitat mapping, which can combine to discriminate between habitats that could not be mapped with either one alone. For robot navigation, SLAM can be effectively applied with either technology, however, when a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is available, SLAM does not significantly improve the self-consistency of multibeam data, but it does for LiDAR.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs12152443