Super sonic vision steals the scene

A new 3D camera produces a clear, 64-line image, even underwater in murky conditions, and could be worn by a diver or anyone else who needs clear vision in difficult circumstances. The camera is the brainchild of a team led by Dr Dimitri Stolyarenko at the Geomatics Centre in Moscow. Its breakthrough in design is the use of a phased array to scan the beam, greatly reducing the number of active transducers from a potential 4,096, as used in the only competitive product, to 128 at any one time. The basic technique is that used in phased array radar, which is to excite a line of transducers in sequence so that they produce a precisely defined wavefront at an angle to the array. The received signals reflected from the object define the shape and position of the various parts of its surface. High speed processing on DSP (Digital Signal Processing) chips performs the necessary computation to produce the scanning beam, and to analyse the received echoes. The prototype transducer packs into a box measuring 700mm x 700mm x 100mm, although there are plans to greatly reduce the size to the point where a system can be mounted on a diver's helmet. A family of products is planned for vessel, ROV and diver helmet mounting, with maximum ranges of 300, 10 and 3m respectively. Coverage is up to 90deg x 90 deg, and the diver mount camera allows the resolution of distinct details down to 3mm across. Projected prices are from $30,000 to $100,000. One of the great potential strengths of the technology is that it produces an accurate 3D image. This is possible because the camera gathers both the magnitude and phase of the echo signals and can deduce both intensity and exact distance. Once a frame of information has been acquired, the stored object image can be inspected from different angles. This facility assists identification and potentially allows the shape to be input into CAD systems. So it has the potential to be of great benefit for remote diagnostic, assessment and remedial work in hostile environments on land, in fires, and down mine shafts and boreholes, as well as under water. The camera came to Eureka's attention when it won a competition for Russian Innovators held by Expert magazine and was awarded a prize by the British Council's Moscow office Geomatics Dimitri Stolyarenko Expert British Council Moscow uk Pointers : Camera uses phased array technology to greatly reduce the cost of gathering ultrasonic images of objects under water : Grabbed frames are 3D allowing images to be rotated from different viewpoints