Optics.org: Researchers at SINTEF, Norway, are working with partners across Europe to develop sensors and lasers for under water ToF camera. The EU project UTOFIA (Underwater Time Of Flight Image Acquisition) has a budget of €5.7M, and will continue till 2018 as part of the European research program Horizon 2020. The other partners in the project are Bright Solutions (Italy), a Fraunhofer research center (Germany), Odos Imaging (UK), Subsea Tech (France), AZTI (Spain) and DTU Aqua (Denmark).
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The biggest problem with traditional cameras is that their range is reduced in poor visibility, particularly in coastal waters made turbid by suspended sand and clay particles. Such cameras have a very limited range under these conditions”, said Project Manager Jens Thielemann at SINTEF.
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The camera shutter is kept closed for approximately 50ns before it opens.
When the first 50 ns is gated out, most of the backscattering
contribution to the noise is removed. |
Thanks to SO for the link!
Thanks for the post. More information here: http://gemini.no/en/2016/01/marine-ressurser-kan-snart-forvaltes-bedre/
ReplyDeleteand here:
www.utofia.eu
This is an old idea, at least 20+ years!
ReplyDeleteSo, what?
DeleteWell it seems the Europeans have a lot of money to spend on known, tried and true solutions. The quote makes it sound like they are embarking on leading edge research to solve problems with traditional cameras.
DeleteIt's an old idea, but traditionally the method is implemented by using gated image intensifier tube. So pure CMOS solution is still interesting ...
Delete-yang ni
The good thing about working on 20+ year old concepts, is that you will not be bothered by insignificant morons who patented the obvious <20 years ago.
DeleteI was just thinking "I wish I could take my Kinect 2 underwater!" Now scientists are working on it!
ReplyDeletewho can work out a sensor in blizzard?
ReplyDeleteWould be an interesting solution for surveillance applications with discrete illumination > 800nm. They suffer from fog and rain reflecting the IR light "too early" and hence the useful range is decreased significantly.
ReplyDeleteAnother surveillance application would be the elimination of reflections inside the camera housing, e.g. the dome bubble of vandalism cameras...
Interesting topic. Except Infrared are absorbed by water... So ToF systems must use lasers with wavelength <800nm to work properly.
ReplyDeleteThat's anyway advantageous in terms of QE & charge transfer. The reason to go for IR in normal applications is not to disturb human beings. It's questionable whether this arguing holds true in underwater applications... So, nothing bad about going to shorter wavelengths ;-D
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