Thursday, May 15, 2014

Stella Maris periscope concept looks through water surface

Innovative underwater camera could transform future submarines’ sensors | Defense Update:

"Virtual periscope" sees above-surface/airborne objects from underwater - American Society for Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

 “Stella Maris is a novel approach to a virtual periscope as it passively measures water and waves by imaging the refracted sun.” Schechner added, “When the water surface is wavy, sun-rays refract according to the waves and project onto the solar image plane,” he explains. “With the pinhole array, we obtain an array of tiny solar images on the diffuser.” When all of the components work together, the Stella Maris system acts as both a wave sensor to estimate the water surface, and a viewing system to see the above surface image of interest through a computerized, “reconstructed” surface. A proof of concept system demonstrating the new method has already been tested in several lab and field experiments. Another innovation introduced by Schechner Hybrid Imaging Lab exploited natural “underwater flicker,” (rapid, random change of underwater lighting, caused by the water surface wave motion) to create a three-dimensional mapping of the sea floor.

ICCP 2014

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