Towards spatial and semantic mapping in aquatic environments

High fidelity data acquisition of dynamic spatiotemporal phenomena for aquatic environmental research suggests the use of actuated sensors. Furthermore, characterization of the floor in aquatic environments is beneficial for environmental science, as well as can be applied to robot localization. The NIMS AQ cable robot platform is designed to meet these requirements and satisfy the constraints of large scale, in-field deployments. In addition to a set of water quality sensors it also carries an ultra-miniature side-scan sonar. In this paper we show the development of methods for autonomous range detection, spatial and semantic mapping in underwater environments. These methods are demonstrated to be important for future developments including localization, navigation, and path planning, particularly for 3D mobility. Experiments have been performed in both controlled environments and a lake environment and results are discussed.