An Intelligent Terrain Profiling Embedded System for Underwater Applications

Abstract

The Terrain Profiling Embedded System (TPES) has been designed by incorporating the requirement for both ground environment and underwater environments. Although extensive research has been carried out in the area of terrain profiling in different scenarios, however, limited work has been performed for under water environment. The present system, TPES is fitted with an ultrasonic emitter which scans the terrain. The ultrasonic pulses are reflected back by the surface under TPES and received back by the sensors. The value of the distance is deduced from time interval between the emitted and received pulse. The position on the map is determined by the inertial guidance system continuously and recorded simultaneously with the elevation data. For under water scenarios, the temperature of the water decreases non-linearly with the increase in depth resulting in the variation in velocity of the ultrasonic pulse. This necessitates the inclusion of this new variable in terrain profiling systems. To address this issue, the present system incorporates the temperature profile of the water for underwater applications to generate precise and accurate map. MATLAB is used to create the 2D/3D maps using the data provided by TPES.