ROV Navigation in a Fish Cage with Laser-Camera Triangulation

Aquaculture net cage inspection and maintenance is a central issue in fish farming. Inspection using autonomous underwater vehicles is a promising solution. This paper proposes laser-camera triangulation for pose estimation to enable autonomous net following for an autonomous vehicle. The laser triangulation 3D data is experimentally compared to a doppler velocity log (DVL) in an active fish farm. We show that our system is comparable in performance to a DVL for distance and angular pose measurements. Laser triangulation is promising as a short distance ranging sensor for autonomous vehicles at a low cost compared to acoustic sensors.