Design and Implementation of Control System for Range-gated Underwater Laser Imaging

There is currently considerable in developing underwater target detection, the underwater imaging system can be divided into active imaging system and passive system. The main feature of the active imaging system is that they use light sources to illuminate the targets and collect the reflection from targets. The advantages of active imaging system over passive imaging systems are high contrast and without the affection of environment sources. In this article, a range-gated underwater laser imaging system is built, which consists of laser illumination system, photoelectric imaging system and control system. The laser illumination system includes a light-pumped solid state doubled ND-YAG laser(532nm) which laser power and frequency can be adjusted and an optics expanding system of variable ratio. The photoelectric imaging system includes a gated Intensified CCD(ICCD) cameras which ICCD scheduling, gate width, delay time and gain can be adjusted and a optics received system of variable ratio. In order to acquire effectual target image using range-gated underwater laser imaging system, appropriate control parameters that include laser power and frequency, ICCD scheduling, gate width, delay time and gain, optics expanding system ratio and optics received system ratio must be given accurately. A control system which used C8051F320 and C8051F040 (MCU) as the core is designed, the control system can effectively control seven parameters that given above. The construction of software and hardware of the control system is introduced. And target image of underwater distance 25 m and 40m is given, Experimental results showed that the control system has high control precision, safe and stable operation and good speed adjusting performance can be achieved. It can be satisfied to apply to underwater target detection.