A Fish-like Binocular Vision System for Underwater Perception of Robotic Fish

Abstract

Biological fish exhibit a remarkably broad-spectrum visual perception capability. Inspired by the eye arrangement of biological fish, we design a fish-like binocular vision system, thereby endowing underwater bionic robots with an exceptionally broad visual perception capacity. Firstly, based on the design principles of binocular visual field overlap and tangency to streamlined shapes, a fish-like vision system is developed for underwater robots, enabling wide-field underwater perception without a waterproof cover. Secondly, addressing the significant distortion and parallax of the vision system, a visual field stitching algorithm is proposed to merge the binocular fields of view and obtain a complete perception image. Thirdly, an orientation alignment method is proposed that draws scales for yaw and pitch angles in the stitched images to provide a reference for the orientation of objects of interest within the field of view. Finally, underwater experiments evaluate the perception capabilities of the fish-like vision system, confirming the effectiveness of the visual field stitching algorithm and the orientation alignment method. The results show that the constructed vision system, when used underwater, achieves a horizontal field of view of 306.56°. The conducted work advances the visual perception capabilities of underwater robots and presents a novel approach to and insight for fish-inspired visual systems.