The search was conducted using a camera mounted on a pole deployed from a 20’ vessel. Arc search patterns were executed using the boat motor to move the vessel left and right, while the bow of the vessel was fixed to a post on shore.

The LYYN T38 was connected between the pole camera and a DVR. A second monitor was plugged into the DVR so that Sam could see in the highly turbid water.

Broward County Sheriff's Office divers

Footage by:

Deputy Sam Lapinsky
Broward County Sheriff’s Office
Marine Unit/Dive Rescue Team

Sam also runs his own company: Innovative Dive Equipment Inc.

The SubSea industry has had to foster innovation in order to face the world’s most challenging environment. But, innovation has not always been synonymous with industry wide acceptance. The industry has, and to a large extent still are, dependent on divers. But that is very limited to shallow waters and limited operation times, and is still very dangerous.The solution is underwater vehicles, manned or remotely operated with remote vision through real-time video.

The introduction of the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) only came about as the industry understood the possibilities that the new technology delivered. Through the years the spectrum of ROV tasks has steadily grown and today it is the workhorse of SubSea operations. But, the industry must now face new challenges as its rapid expansion into deeper water and hasher environments pushes resources and current technology to the limit. To meet this challenge new concepts of operations and novel solutions are required.

This is where LYYN® comes in. LYYN provides enhanced visibility to the remote operations. In real-time. Shortening operation times. Increasing quality of inspections and documentation. Pushing the usage of underwater video.

LYYN’s primary SubSea applications:

Inspection

In the past, inspecting under water was a difficult and expensive operation. The diver was often working in dark and turbid water and had to contend with currents, making it a particularly hazardous job. Today more and more companies are using ROVs to perform these inspections. Having an ROV allows them to perform an inspection whenever they want.

In order to do this, water and environmental conditions must be established for the inspection. Of course, the inspector will want to find the clearest water and the least current possible for the inspection. But if the case is not a ship you can move to the most favorable conditions you are stuck with what Mother Nature provides. And the visibility is what it is. Or even worse, if you happen to stir up silt. This is where LYYN™ products can make an important contribution.

By reducing visibility problems you will get results where you would not without LYYN. This means higher quality in the inspection result, reducing inspection time and costs. Drastically.

Underwater archeology

There are many reasons why underwater archeology can make significant contributions to our knowledge of the past. Some individual shipwrecks are of significant historical importance either because of the magnitude (such as the Titanic), or circumstances (Housatonic was the first vessel in history sunk by an enemy submarine). Shipwrecks can also be important for archeology because they can form a kind of accidental time capsule, preserving a collection of human artifacts at the moment in time when the ship was lost.

Underwater sites are difficult to access, and more hazardous, compared to working on dry land. In order to access the site directly, diving equipment and diving skills are necessary. The depths that can be accessed by divers, and the length of time available for inspection, are limited. For deep sites beyond the reach of divers, submarines or remote sensing equipment are needed.

Visibility may be poor, because of sediments or algae in the water or lack of light. This means that survey techniques that work well on land generally cannot be used effectively under water. This is where LYYN™ products can make an important contribution.

Underwater Sciences, like geology, biology and environmental studies

A large amount of all life on Earth exists in the oceans. Exactly how large the proportion is still unknown. While the oceans comprise about 71% of the Earth’s surface, due to their depth they encompass about 300 times the habitable volume of the terrestrial habitats on Earth. Large areas beneath the ocean surface still remain effectively unexplored.

ROVs with cameras are rapidly becoming the standard non-invasive imaging tool for marine biologists. An ROV allows many more people to participate in the exploration of the deep sea while remaining in a safer environment. This high tech, motorized underwater camera has the ability to “swim” along the ocean bottom at any depth, allowing the scientists to closely observe the plant and animal life there. And it does not produce bubbles that scare fish. But because of turbidity and other visibility problems of the sea it is sometimes difficult to get quality data from the study. That is, if you are not using a LYYN™ real-time video enhancer.

Inshore inspection

The ROV technology has proven its durability and versatility in missions around the globe. And now, with the commonly used micro ROV, inspectors can access tight places that are inaccessible or hazardous to divers. In even smaller spaces ruggedized micro and fiber optic cameras are used commonly.

Every detail can be scrutinized. As long as there is visibility enough for a quality result. Better and better lights are mounted on the ROV or camera increasing usability. But sometimes this is not enough. The water might be so turbid that the strong light just creates overexposed “milk”. Strong tinting of the water might obscure the surfaces you are supposed to inspect. And how do you distinguish a corroded crack from the rest of the corroded surface?

There are many customer cases verifying that you can push the limits of the underwater inspection technologies a few steps further by plugging in a LYYN™ unit in the existing video system. The result is reduced visual disturbances from particles or algae, removed predominant tinting from organic matter or minerals and increasing contrast in surface colors.

Search & Rescue (SAR) and Security

The use of  camera systems for search and recovery operations is growing since it is often more efficient that using divers. Especially when speed is of the essence, diver down- time can be a limiting factor and the operation is too dangerous to use human intervention.

The growing need to secure ports and waterways also increases the use of camera systems.

For both these applications increasing visibility can be a significant contributor to success of the mission.

Aquaculture

The use of cameras in the Aquaculture market is rapidly growing and fish farms are constantly looking at more cost effective means of monitoring their fish and feed residues.  Environmental aspects on fish farming are increasing and legislation is more and more demanding video documentation of the sea bottom.

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The test was so successful that Avitone decided to join the LYYN dealer network for the Taiwanese Security and SubSea markets.

This first clip comes from a live test of the LYYN T38™ recorded from a surveillance camera overlooking Taipei Harbor.

The following clips come from their tests in low-light conditions. Click on the video, it is only black in the beginning until they turn on the LYYN T38.:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Published courtesy of Avitone Co, Ltd,
©2007 Avitone Co, Ltd, all rights reserved.

Enhancing visibility in CCTV systems

The dock has to be monitored even in fog.

Every waterway presents unique safety and security challenges. Marine and atmospheric environments, local maritime laws and increasing vessel traffic all complicate the navigation of waterways, ports and rivers. Maritime borders must be protected from illegal immigration, drug traffic and environmental hazards. Fisheries and other natural resources are in danger of depletion. Cargo and passenger ships need to get to their intended destination safely and on schedule. Ships in distress need to be quickly found and assisted. Commercial and naval ports need protection from terrorist attack.

Many technologies are used to detect objects and possible threats, like radar and transponder systems. Advanced imaging technologies like IR and thermal cameras are widely used to gain as much visual information as possible. But there still remains the problem of visual identification of the detected objects. Then you need the color and details only provided by CCTV color cameras.

Atmospheric conditions

A white old steamer in fog. Not that easy to see...

The marine environment is particularly harsh and unfriendly to remote monitoring. Fog, haze, rain and snow are common and usually the object you need to identify is distant, maybe moving at high speed. Thermal imaging and IR has solved many problems and outperforms traditional CCTV cameras, but they still have their limitations, being monochrome and often with low resolution.

Another way to address visibility problems is to enhance the color image. LYYN® has developed real-time image enhancement algorithms that can give any CCTV system a real boost. The technology is proven with several hundred users worldwide, many being in the SubSea industry where there always are visibility problems. But this technology is equally useful in security & surveillance applications.

The viewing distance problem

Even on a supposedly clear day there is still haze, obscuring details on this ship.

Even on a clear day there is moisture in the air. Looking over great distances, for instance monitoring port entry, you need powerful zooms. The problem is that this compression of distance doesn’t remove the haze or fog; it actually amplifies the perception of it. Something LYYN® algorithms are exceptionally good at removing.

De-hazing IR cameras

IR camera with LYYN T38 as dehazer

Even though the LYYN algorithms are designed for color video we still have an interesting result on monochrome video. Probably the most interesting application is our ability to enhance IR imagery.

We have customers that claim that LYYN outperform the standard tools of the large IR camera manufacturers. Visit the customer case to read more.