Battelle retools 360-degree video camera to operate in the ocean at depths to 10,000 feet
DEEP DIVER
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As soon as Brad Thomas saw the camera and lens, he knew he had to tinker with it. In fact, he knew where he could make it do wonderful things — the ocean floor. “When it came across my email ... I sat there and I said, ‘Oh, well I see a direct use for this,’ ” said Thomas, a mechanical engineer at Battelle.
Thomas, who designs remotely operated vehicles and robotics for maritime use, was looking at what would become the HorizonVue M360 Deep Camera, which provides real-time 360-degree video while correcting the distortion that occurs underwater.
“Something as simple as picking a wrench up off the table is so simple,” Thomas said. “But if what you’re seeing is not here but over here ...,” he said, mimicking a
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robotic arm fumbling for a tool.
“All that distortion causes problems when they’re trying to operate the vehicle.”
Current technology relies on multiple cameras to tilt, pan and zoom in on objects. The images that those cameras take then must be stitched together.
That many cameras means a lot of moving parts. And moving parts can stop moving.
“This gets from five parts that could fail to one part,” said Richard Granger, Battelle’s business-development leader for maritime services. “When you see the resulting imagery, it looks very natural.” Here’s how it works: Light enters the crystal globe around the lens from all angles, except the top and bottom. The light is reflected downward off a dome-shaped mirror to project a doughnut-shape image onto a 10-megapixel digital sensor, which stitches them together into a panoramic view.
“Think of it as taking a spherical map and flattening it out,” Thomas said, adding that a complex array of lenses and mathematical algorithms does the heavy lifting. And in a small package. “You hate to say everything boils down to size, weight and power,” he said. “But when you’re dealing with vehicles that are power-conscious ... size, weight and power become very important.”
The 6-pound device is powered by 5 watts, has no moving parts and runs silent.
That last part was important to Columbus Zoo and Aquarium officials. Why? Thomas asked if he could test the camera in the zoo’s giant saltwater fish tank.
He also mounted the camera in the bed of his pickup truck for one test and submerged it in Battelle’s test pool for another.
Perhaps the most vigorous test took place in his own house. He set up the camera in his living room and let his children, 7, 10 and 12, play.
Thomas calls the device “the ultimate form of backup camera. You don’t need to be able to read the fine print, you just have to know that there’s print there.”
A stainless steel and aluminum housing attaches the camera to a long arm. The prototype’s acrylic globe houses the lenses.“People around here call it the magic snow globe,” said Thomas.
Battelle and partner company RemoteReality will share any future sales, said RaghuMenon, president of the Connecticutbased company.
Menon said he is sure the product will sell.
“It sees better than a human because you essentially have eyes on the back of your head.”
And at 10,000 feet below the surface.