Underwater Image Mosaics for AUV-Mounted Cameras

This paper presents a novel method for automatically selecting the highest quality image sections for an underwater optical mosaic. We have constructed an image quality measure, which is used to determine the optimal seam between two overlapping images. We also present our preprocessing algorithm, which is a novel combination of existing methods. The full mosaic processing chain is demonstrated on images collected with a HUGIN autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), using a camera system consisting of a high-sensitivity, still-image camera and a synchronized strobe with multiple light emitting diodes (LEDs).