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Visual maps of the seafloor can provide objective information to characterize benthic ecosystems and survey the distribution of mineral deposits on spatial scales that cannot be otherwise assessed. This paper proposes a threedimensional mapping method based on light sectioning that enables the simultaneous capture of both structure and color from the images of a single camera. The advantages of the method include high and consistent resolution of the bathymetry, and the simplicity of the setup and the algorithm used to process the data it obtains. The hardware requirements for collecting the data are a single camera, a line laser, and a light, making it possible to deploy the mapping device along with other sensors and devices on underwater platforms such as autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles that can log navigation data. The system has been deployed on a total of 11 cruises, among others, to survey manganese-rich crust deposits on the slopes of Takuyo #5 seamount in the Pacific at depths of more than 2,000 m. In this paper, we present the data that were obtained on one of these cruises.

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Abstract-This article presents a bathymetric SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) solution for underwater vehicles by addressing the registration of point clouds gathered from single line laser-based structured light systems. While structured light can be applied to generate millimetre resolution seafloor bathymetry, the accuracy of the maps generated is typically constrained by the localization accuracy of the vehicles used. In this work, relative uncertainties in vehicle localisation are reduced by implementing bathymetric SLAM using temporally constrained submaps. We demonstrate that the method described can overcome misalignments by correcting errors in localisation and can be used to generate self-consistent high-resolution seafloor bathymetric maps.