This paper considers tracking of a non-cooperative emitter based on a single sensor. To this end, the direct target motion analysis (DTMA) approach, where the target state is straightforwardly achieved from the received signal, is exploited. In order to achieve observability, the sensor has to perform a maneuver relative to the emitter. By suitably building an approximated likelihood function, the unscented Kalman filter (UKF), which is able to work under high nonlinearity of the measurement model, is adopted to recursively estimate the target state. Besides, the posterior Cramér-Rao bound (PCRB) of DTMA, which can be used as performance benchmark, is also achieved. The effectiveness of proposed method is verified via simulation experiments.

This paper introduces a novel skin-stretcher device for gently urging head rotation. The device pulls and/or pushes the skin on the user's neck by using servo motors. The user is induced to rotate his/her head based on the sensation caused by the local stretching of skin. This mechanism informs the user when and how much the head rotation is requested; however it does not force head rotation, i.e., it allows the user to ignore the stimuli and to maintain voluntary movements. We implemented a prototype device and analyzed the performance of the skin stretcher as a human-in-the-loop system. Experimental results define its fundamental characteristics, such as input-output gain, settling time, and other dynamic behaviors. Features are analyzed, for example, input-output gain is stable within the same installation condition, but various between users.

Most conventional research on target motion analysis (TMA) based on least squares (LS) has focused on performing asymptotically unbiased estimation with inaccurate measurements. However, such research may often yield inaccurate estimation results when only a small set of measurement data is used. In this paper, we propose an accurate TMA method even with a small set of bearing measurements. First, a subset of measurements is selected by a random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm. Then, LS is applied to the selected subset to estimate target motion. Finally, to increase accuracy, the target motion estimation is refined through a bias compensation algorithm. Simulated results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Facial micro-expressions are fast and subtle facial motions that are considered as one of the most useful external signs for detecting hidden emotional changes in a person. However, they are not easy to detect and measure as they appear only for a short time, with small muscle contraction in the facial areas where salient features are not available. We propose a new computer vision method for detecting and measuring timing characteristics of facial micro-expressions. The core of this method is based on a descriptor that combines pre-processing masks, histograms and concatenation of spatial-temporal gradient vectors. Presented 3D gradient histogram descriptor is able to detect and measure the timing characteristics of the fast and subtle changes of the facial skin surface. This method is specifically designed for analysis of videos recorded using a hi-speed 200 fps camera. Final classification of micro expressions is done by using a k-mean classifier and a voting procedure. The Facial Action Coding System was utilized to annotate the appearance and dynamics of the expressions in our new hi-speed micro-expressions video database. The efficiency of the proposed approach was validated using our new hi-speed video database.

In H.264/AVC standard, many new techniques such as variable block size (VBS) and multiple reference frame (MRF) are used in motion estimation (ME) part to achieve superior coding performance. However, the use of new techniques will also cause great burden on computation complexity, which leads to problems in low power hardware implementation. Many software based fast ME algorithms are proposed to reduce complexity. For real-time hardwired encoder, the huge throughput of fractional motion estimation (FME) and integer motion estimation (IME) makes pipeline stage a must. In this case, IME is arranged in a single stage, which deteriorates the efficiency of many software based algorithms. Based on the hardware data flow, this paper provides a complexity reduction algorithm which speeds up ME procedure through three schemes. Firstly, the proposed algorithm executes similarity analysis to detect big mode MB and apply early termination in IME stage. Secondly, for normal MB, motion feature is extracted after IME of each frame and a 6-ring based search range adjustment scheme is introduced to remove redundant search positions. Thirdly, for MBs which have large motion feature, the pixel difference is very small due to the blur effect on video sensor. So, we use subsampling technique to reduce computation complexity for such MBs. Experimental results show that, compared with hardware friendly full search algorithm, the proposed fast ME algorithm can reduce 52.63% to 83.21% ME time with negligible video quality degradation. Furthermore, since the proposed algorithm works in a hardware friendly way, it can be embedded into 3-stage real-time hardwired video encoder to achieve low power design.

Localization of a vehicle is a key component for driving assistance or autonomous navigation. In this work, we propose a visual positioning system (VPS) for vehicle or mobile robot navigation. Different from general landmark-based or model-based approaches, which rely on some predefined known landmarks or a priori information about the environment, no assumptions on the prior knowledge of the scene are made. A stereo-based vision system is built for both extracting feature correspondences and recovering 3-D information of the scene from image sequences. Relative positions of the camera motion are then estimated by registering the 3-D feature points from two consecutive image frames. Localization of the mobile platform is finally given by the reference to its initial position.

In this paper, a process is described for analysing the motion of a human target in a video stream. Moving targets are detected and their boundaries extracted. From these, a "star" skeleton is produced. Two motion cues are determined from this skeletonization: body posture, and cyclic motion of skeleton segments. These cues are used to determine human activities such as walking or running, and even potentially, the target's gait. Unlike other methods, this does not require an a priori human model, or a large number of "pixels on target". Furthermore, it is computationally inexpensive, and thus ideal for real-world video applications such as outdoor video surveillance.

Techniques for human-motion recovery are applicable to a variety of areas, such as sports, dancing, virtual reality, and video-game production. The people who work in this area focus their attention on recovering information on the motion of individuals rather than groups of people. It is important to demonstrate the possibility of recovering descriptions of the 3-D motion in team sports, since such information is able to provide us with a variety of information on the relations among players. This paper presents a new experimental result on 3-D motion recovery from a team sport. The result was obtained by a non-rigid shape recovery technique based on images from uncalibrated cameras. The technique was applied to recovering the 3-D motion of the players in a mini-basketball game which was played in a gymnasium. Some attention is focused on the analysis of the players' motion. Satisfactory results were obtained.

This paper describes a factorization-based algorithm that reconstructs 3D object structure as well as motion from a set of multiple uncalibrated perspective images. The factorization method introduced by Tomasi-Kanade is believed to be applicable under the assumption of linear approximations of imaging system. In this paper we describe that the method can be extended to the case of truly perspective images if projective depths are recovered. We established this fact by interpreting their purely mathematical theory in terms of the projective geometry of the imaging system and thereby, giving physical meanings to the parameters involved. We also provide a method to recover them using the fundamental matrices and epipoles estimated from pairs of images in the image set. Our method is applicable for general cases where the images are not taken by a single moving camera but by different cameras having individual camera parameters. The experimental results clearly demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed method.

3D model-based coding methods that need 3D reconstruction techniques are proposed for next-generation image coding methods. A method is presented that reconstructs 3D shapes of dynamic objects from image sequences captured using two cameras, thus avoiding the stereo correspondence problem. A coaxial camera system consisting of one moving and one static camera was developed. The optical axes of both cameras are precisely adjusted and have the same orientation using an optical system with true and half mirrors. The moving camera is moved along a straight horizontal line. This method can reconstruct 3D shapes of static objects as well as dynamic objects using motion vectors calculated from the moving camera images and revised using the static camera image. The method was tested successfully on real images by reconstructing a moving human shape.

In this paper, we study three-dimensional motion estimation using optical flow. We construct a weighted quotient-form objective function that provides an unbiased estimator. Using this objective function with a certain projection operator as a weight drastically reduces the computational cost for estimation compared with using the maximum likelihood estimator. To reduce the variance of the estimator, we examine the weight, and we show by theoretical evaluations and simulations that, with an appropriate projection function, and when the noise variance is not too small, this objective function provides an estimator whose variance is smaller than that of the maximum likelihood estimator. The use of this projection is based on the knowledge that the depth function has a positive value (i. e., the object is in front of the camera) and that it is generally smooth.

This paper proposes a new method that can robustly recover 3D structure and 3D motion of 3D moving objects from a few multi-views. It recovers 3D feature points by obtaining intersections of back-projection lines which are connected from the camera's optical centers thorough projected feature points on the image planes corresponding to the different cameras. We show that our method needs only six views to suppress false 3D feature points in most cases by discussing the relation between the occurrence probability of false 3D feature points and the number of views. This discussion gives us a criterion to design the optimal multi-camera system for recovering 3D structure and 3D motion of 3D moving objects. An experimental multi-camera system is constructed to confirm the validity of our method. This system can take images from six different views at once and record motion image sequence from each view over a period of a few seconds. It is tested successfully on recovering the 3D structure of Vinus's plaster head and on recovering the 3D structure and 3D motion of a moving hand.

This paper presents a theoretically best algorithm within the framework of our image noise model for reconstructing 3-D from two views when all the feature points are on a planar surface. Pointing out that statistical bias is introduced if the least-squares scheme is used in the presence of image noise, we propose a scheme called renormalization, which automatically removes statistical bias. We also present an optimal correction scheme for canceling the effect of image noise in individual feature points. Finally, we show numerical simulation and confirm the effectiveness of our method.

Introducing a general statistical model of image noise, we present an optimal algorithm for computing 3-D motion from two views without involving numerical search: () the essential matrix is computed by a scheme called renormalization; () the decomposability condition is optimally imposed on it so that it exactly decomposes into motion parameters; () image feature points are optimally corrected so that they define their 3-D depths. Our scheme not only produces a statistically optimal solution but also evaluates the reliability of the computed motion parameters and reconstructed points in quantitative terms.

We prove that the maximum likelihood estimator for estimating 3-D motion from noisy optical flow is not optimal", i.e., there is an unbiased estimator whose covariance matrix is smaller than that of the maximum likelihood estimator when a Gaussian noise distribution is assumed for a sufficiently large number of observed points. Since Gaussian assumption for the noise is given, the maximum likelihood estimator minimizes the mean square error of the observed optical flow. Though the maximum likehood estimator's covariance matrix usually reaches the Cramér-Rao lower bound in many statistical problems when the number of observed points is infinitely large, we show that the maximum likelihood estimator's covariance matrix does not reach the Cramér-Rao lower bound for the estimation of 3-D motion from noisy optical flow under such conditions. We formulate a superior estimator, whose covariance matrix is smaller than that of the maximum likelihood estimator, when the variance of the Gaussian noise is not very small.

This paper describes a noise resistant algorithm for estimating 3-D rigid motion from optical flow. We first discuss the problem of constructing the objective function to be minimized. If a Gaussian distribution is assumed for the niose, it is well-known that the least-squares minimization becomes the maximum likelihood estimation. However, the use of this objective function makes the minimization procedure more expensive because the program has to go through all the points in the image at each iteration. We therefore introduce an objective function that provides unbiased estimators. Using this function reduces computational costs. Furthermore, since good approximations can be analytically obtained for the function, using them as an initial guess we can apply an iterative minimization method to the function, which is expected to be stable. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated by computer simulation.

A problem which often arises in computer vision is that of matching corresponding points of images. In the case of object recognition, for example, the computer compares new images to templates from a library of known objects. A common way to perform this comparison is to extract feature points from the images and compare these points with the template points. Another common example is the case of motion detection, where feature points of a video image are compared to those of the previous frame. Note that in both of these example, the point correspondence is complicated by the fact that the point sets are not only randomly ordered but have also been distorted by an unknown transformation and having quite different coordinates. In the case of object recognition, there exists a transformation from the object being viewed, to its projection onto the camera's imaging plane, while in the motion detection case, this transformation represents the motion (translation and rotation) of the ofject. If the parameters of the transformation are completely unknow, then all n! permutations must be compared (n : number of feature points). For each permutation, the ensuing transformation is computed using the least-squared projection method. The exponentially large computation required for this is prohibitive. A neural computational method is propopsed to solve these combinatorial problems. This method obtains the best correspondence matching and also finds the associated transform parameters. The method was applied to two dimensional point correspondence and three-to-two dimensional correspondence. Finally, this connectionist approach extends readily to a Boltzmann machine implementation. This implementation is desirable when the transformation is unknown, as it is less sensitive to local minima regardless of initial conditions.

This paper describes a noise resistant algorithm for recovering the three-dimensional motion of a rigid object from optical flow. First, it is shown that in the absence of noise three-demensional motion can be obtained exactly by a linear algorithm except in the special case in which the surface of the object is on a general quadratic surface passing through the viewpoint, and the normal vector of the surface at the viewpoint is perpendicular to the translation velocity vector. In the presence of noise, an evaluation function is introduced based on the least squares method. It is shown, however, that the solution which minimizes the evaluation function is not always optimal due to statistical bias. To deal with this problem, a method to eliminate the statistical bias in the evaluation function is proposed for zero mean white noise. Once the statistical bias is eliminated, the solution of the linear algorithm coincides with the correct solution by means of expectation. In this linear algorithm, only the eigenvector corresponding to the zero eigenvalue of a 33 matrix is necessary to find the translational velocity. Once the translational velocity is obtained, the rotational velocity can be computed directly. This method is also shown to be noise resistant by computer simulation.

A method for detecting multiple rigid motions in images from an optical flow field obtained with multi-scale, multi-orientation filters is proposed. Convolving consecutive gray scale images with a set of eight orientation-selective spatial Gaussian filters yields eight gradient constraint equations for the two components of a flow vector at every location. The flow vector and an uncertainty measure are obtained from these equations. In the neighborhood of motion boundary, the uncertainty of the flow vectors increase. By using multiple sets of filters of different scales, multiple flow vectors are obtained at every location, from which the one with minimal uncertainty measure is selected. The obtained flow field is then segmented in order to solve the aperture problem and to remove noise without blurring discontinuity in the flow field. Discontinuities are first detected as those locations where flow vectors have relatively larger uncertainty measures. Then similar flow vectors are gouped into regions. By modeling flow vectors, regions are merged to form segments each of which belongs to a planar patch of a rigid object in the scene.