Abstract
We present a standalone instrumentation system designed to create digital multi-modal maps of the sea ice surrounding ships operating in the Arctic. The system contains a 3D LiDAR scanner and an optical camera for remote sensing. Spatial calibration of the sensors enables us to project point clouds onto the optical images, providing RGB values to the 3D map. The presented system can continuously monitor sea ice and build large-scale maps by running a navigation filter to estimate the system trajectory. This is made possible by internal navigational payloads, making the system independent of the vessel on which it is mounted. The ice field maps are validated by reconstructing images and comparing them to synchronized inputs from the optical camera. Qualitative comparisons between the reconstructed and optical images show that the most prominent features of the sea ice are conserved. We also propose a method to track sea ice roughness over large temporal and spatial scales and show how this can automatically detect areas with a high amount of deformed ice.
