Analysis of morphological surface profile extraction with multiple sonar range measurements

A novel method is described for surface profile extraction based on morphological processing of multiple range sensor data. The approach taken is extremely flexible and robust, in addition to being simple and straightforward. It can deal with arbitrary numbers and configurations of range sensors as well as synthetic arrays obtained by moving a relatively small number of sensors. The method has the intrinsic ability to suppress spurious readings, crosstalk, and higher-order reflections, and process multiple reflections informatively. The performance of the method is investigated by analyzing its dependence on surface structure and distance, sensor beamwidth, and noise on the time-of-flight measurements. The essential idea of this work—the use of multiple range sensors combined with morphological processing—can be applied to different physical modalities of range sensing of vastly different scales and in many different areas. These may include radar, sonar, robotics, optical sensing and metrology, remote sensing, ocean surface exploration, geophysical exploration, and acoustic microscopy.