Robust Subsea Pipeline Tracking with Noisy Multibeam Echosounder

Subsea pipelines are crucial offshore assets aiding transportation of oil and gas. Regular inspections are required for assessing their integrity to ensure continual use and avoid possible marine ecosystem damage. This paper proposes a novel real-time algorithm for pipeline detection and tracking at close proximity using only a multibeam echosounder with noisy measurements. The proposed detection method provides accurate pipe detections and also estimates orientation of the pipe. The tracking method robustly filters out the false alarms produced by the detection algorithm. Extensive field experiments have been conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.