CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION OF THE INTEL T265 FOR VISUAL LOCALISATION AND TRACKING UNDERWATER

Localization and navigation for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has always been a major challenge and many situations complex solutions had to be devised. One of the main approaches is visual odometry using a stereo camera. In this study, the Intel T265 fisheye stereo camera has been calibrated and tested to determine it’s usability for localisation and navigation under water as an alternative to more complex systems. Firstly the Intel T265 fisheye stereo camera was appropriately calibrated inside a water filled container. This calibration consisting of camera and distortion parameters got programmed onto the T265 fisheye stereo camera to take the differences between land and underwater usage into account. Successive the calibration, the accuracy and the precision of the T265 fisheye stereo camera were tested using a linear, a circular and finally a chaotic motion. This includes a review of the localisation and tracking of the cameras visual odometry compared to a ground truth provided by an OptiTrack V120:Trio to account for scaling, accuracy and precision. Also experiments to determine the usability with fast chaotic motions were performed and analysed. Finally, a conclusion concerning the applicability of the Intel T265 fisheye stereo camera, the challenges using this model, the possibilities for low cost operations and the main challenges for future work is conducted