A new compact solution for the rapid measurement of underwater gate guides

In the past years, a laser scanning system to measure hydraulic gate frames with high precision was developed by Hydro-Québec. Inspired by this first design, a new compact and lower cost platform was developed. The WireScan technology is actually applicable to measure the geometry of any structure that is vertical and underwater. The applicability of this technology was further extended with improvements to the localization algorithm of the laser scanner. Its robustness to marine snow was increased by taking advantage of the newly available computing power of general purpose graphical processing units. Four case study related to hydro plant (water intake gate and spillway stoplogs), and navigation locks (balancing gates and channel width) are presented.