Subsea optical inspection tech firm Voyis Imaging has unveiled its Discovery line of vision systems for ROVs, created to “address the trade-off currently being made between piloting cameras and 3D inspection cameras”, the company says.
Voyis argues that piloting cameras prioritise low latency video at the expense of the image data required for 3D model generation. By the same token, while 3D cameras prioritise image data, they are not so great for effective ROV piloting as they have higher latency and a smaller field of view. The Discovery vision systems have thus been developed to deliver 4K piloting video while simultaneously capturing crisp, high-quality stills images for direct 3D modelling.
The Discovery comes in two versions, both fitted with Nova Mini lights, rated 125,000lumens. The first is the Discovery Camera, which features an 8-megapixel sensor and provides a 130° x 130° field of view “for complete situational awareness without needing to tilt the camera”, Voyis says.
The second is the Discovery Stereo, which offers a 75° x 75° field of view and uses onboard computing to instantaneously calculate 3D depth maps for measurements and coverage monitoring. Voyis says: “These depth maps are 3D point clouds calculated from feature matches between a pair of images at a single point in time, which can be displayed in a real-time rotatable video stream to observe the changing 3D scene and allow the pilot to monitor the vehicle’s position relative to the target. This depth perception [could] enable autonomous capabilities on newer robotic platforms, like manipulator automation or station-keeping without seabed bottom-lock.”
