Improvement on the vergence control mechanism of an underwater stereo camera

Abstract

This paper introduces a vergence control mechanism of an underwater stereo camera to get stereo images and to extract the size information of underwater objects without image processing systems. The proposed vergence control mechanism simultaneously adjusts the lateral shift of lenses and the longitudinal shift of cameras with one control command, which is actuated with a dualcam structure based on non-linear relation of two shifts. The size information of underwater objects is derived from a distance measurement algorithm of the underwater stereo camera. It is assumed that the stereo camera is mounted on a pan-and-tilt device. This paper also introduces the design and implementation of the stereo camera that has two lateral moving lenses, two longitudinal moving cameras, and a dual-cam mechanism, which can be applicable to underwater applications such as ROVs.