Fuzzy color extractor based algorithm for segmenting an odor source in near shore ocean conditions

A mission of chemical plume tracing (CPT) in near-shore and ocean environments is to find out an odor source via an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). It is necessary to confirm the detected odor source using a visual system interactively or automatically, when a chemical sensor identifies the odor source. However, color images taken in near-shore ocean environments are very vague due to dim illumination conditions and fluid advection effects. This paper presents a fuzzy algorithm for recognizing the chemical plume and its source in near-shore and ocean environments. This algorithm iteratively generates color patterns based on a defined reference color and extracts color components of the chemical plume and its source from fuzzy images using a fuzzy color extractor (FCE). The proposed approach to color image segmentation might be of general interest to robot vision.