Underwater photography is a key to understanding marine environments and uncovering their diversity.
Despite the advancement of imaging techniques in general, there is a major obstacle to underwater photography and observation. Fafor cameras The current ones have to be connected either to ships or drones, as they consume a lot of power.
It also requires changing batteries frequently, in addition to the high cost of operating a camera that works underwater for a long time.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States were able to overcome these obstacles by designing a new camera without a battery that can transmit images wirelessly.
The scientific team led by the Lebanese researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fadel Adib, was able to design this camera and test it in marine environments at a low cost of no more than $100.
According to the scientific paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the new camera works by harvesting sound waves.
That is, it converts mechanical energy from sound waves traveling through the water into electrical energy that powers its imaging and communications equipment.
After capturing and encoding the image data, the camera also uses sound waves to transmit the data to a receiver that reconstructs the image.
more accurate
In an interview with Al-Sharq, Adeeb said that the camera consumes regarding 100,000 times less energy than a camera mobile. It can also capture color photos even in dark underwater environments.
Because it doesn’t require an external power source, the camera can run for weeks on end before it can be retrieved, allowing scientists to search remote parts of the ocean for new species.
The camera can also be used to take pictures of ocean pollution or monitor the health and growth of fish raised in aquaculture farms.
“This technology can help us build more accurate climate models and better understand how climate change is affecting the underwater world,” Adeeb explained.
How does the wireless camera work?
In the case of the newly designed camera, when a sound wave hits the transducer, the particles of the piezoelectric material vibrate, converting that mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Then sound waves are generated in marine environments from several sources, such as transiting ships, or marine life.
This process results in the generation of a very small amount of energy. “Here comes the big challenge. The cameras need large energies to operate them.”
“Even with the harvested energy stored inside the transformer, the amount is still very small,” says Adeeb.
So, to keep power consumption as low as possible, the researchers used imaging sensors that were specifically designed for ultra-low power use.
But those sensors only capture grayscale images.
Since most underwater environments lack a light source, the researchers also needed to develop a low-power ‘flash’.
“Here came the new step,” Adeeb said.
According to Adib, the researchers used LED lights that have red, green and blue colors. emitting light sequentially, and sensorstake photo During the light emission, the images originally captured are then processed in black and white in order to save energy.
“It took a fair amount of creativity to figure out how to do this,” the Lebanese researcher added.
He points out: “The red, green, and blue colored light is reflected in the white part of each image. When the image data is combined in post-processing, the color image can be reconstructed.”
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