A Competitive Neural Network for Multiple Object Tracking in Video Sequence Analysis

Tracking of moving objects in real situation is a challenging research issue, due to dynamic changes in objects or background appearance, illumination, shape and occlusions. In this paper, we deal with these difficulties by incorporating an adaptive feature weighting mechanism to the proposed growing competitive neural network for multiple objects tracking. The neural network takes advantage of the most relevant object features (information provided by the proposed adaptive feature weighting mechanism) in order to estimate the trajectories of the moving objects. The feature selection mechanism is based on a genetic algorithm, and the tracking algorithm is based on a growing competitive neural network where each unit is associated to each object in the scene. The proposed methods (object tracking and feature selection mechanism) are applied to detect the trajectories of moving vehicles in roads. Experimental results show the performance of the proposed system compared to the standard Kalman filter.     

Online Depth Image-Based Object Tracking with Sparse Representation and Object Detection

Online object tracking under complex environments is an important but challenging problem in computer vision, especially for illumination changing and occlusion conditions. With the emergence of commercial real-time depth cameras like Kinect, depth image-based object tracking, which is insensitive to illumination changing, gains more and more attentions. In this paper, we propose an online depth image-based object tracking method with sparse representation and object detection. In this framework, we combine tracking and detection to leverage precision and efficiency under heavy occlusion conditions. For tracking, objects are represented by sparse representations learned online with update. For detection, we apply two different strategies based on tracking-learning-detection and wider search window approaches. We evaluate our methods on both the subset of the public dataset Princeton Tracking Benchmark and our own driver face video in a simulated driving environment. The quantitative evaluations of precision and running time on these two datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed object tracking algorithms.     

变分调整约束下的反向低秩稀疏学习目标跟踪

目的 低秩稀疏学习目标跟踪算法在目标快速运动和严重遮挡等情况下容易出现跟踪漂移现象,为此提出一种变分调整约束下的反向低秩稀疏学习目标跟踪算法。方法 采用核范数凸近似低秩约束描述候选粒子间的时域相关性,去除不相关粒子,适应目标外观变化。通过反向稀疏表示描述目标表观,用候选粒子稀疏表示目标模板,减少在线跟踪中L₁优化问题的数目,提高跟踪效率。在有界变差空间利用变分调整对稀疏系数差分建模,约束目标表观在相邻帧间具有较小变化,但允许连续帧间差异存在跳跃不连续性,以适应目标快速运动。结果 实验利用OTB（object tracking benchmark）数据集中的4组涵盖了严重遮挡、快速运动、光照和尺度变化等挑战因素的标准视频序列进行测试,定性和定量对比了本文算法与5种热点算法的跟踪效果。定性分析基于视频序列的主要挑战因素进行比较,定量分析通过中心点位置误差（central pixel error,CPE）比较跟踪算法的精度。与CNT（convolutional networks training）、SCM（sparse collaborative model）、IST（inverse sparse tracker）、DDL（discriminative dictionary learning）和LLR（locally low-rank representation）算法相比,平均CPE值分别提高了2.80、4.16、13.37、35.94和41.59。实验结果表明,本文算法达到了较高的跟踪精度,对上述挑战因素更具鲁棒性。结论 本文提出的跟踪算法,综合了低秩稀疏学习和变分优化调整的优势,在复杂场景下具有较高的跟踪精度,特别是对严重遮挡和快速运动情况的有效跟踪更具鲁棒性。     

结合相位一致性的度量学习跟踪

目的 目标跟踪在实际应用中通常会遇到一些复杂的情况,如光照变化、目标变形等问题,为提高跟踪的准确性和稳定性,提出了一种基于相位一致性特征的度量学习跟踪方法。方法 首先对目标区域提取相位一致性特征,其次结合集成学习和支持向量机的优点,利用度量学习的思想进行区域的相似性判别,以此来确定目标所在位置。跟踪的同时在线更新目标模型和度量矩阵从而实现自适应性。结果 算法的有效性在有外观、光照变化及遮挡等具有挑战性的视频序列上得到了验证,并与当前几种主流方法进行了跟踪成功率和跟踪误差的定量比较,实验结果显示本文算法在4组视频上的跟踪误差平均为15个像素,跟踪成功率最低的也达到了80%,优于其他算法,具有更好的跟踪准确性和稳定性。结论 本文设计并实现了一种基于度量学习的跟踪新方法,利用较少的训练样本即可学习到有判别力的度量矩阵。该跟踪方法对目标特征的维数没有限制,在高维特征空间的判别中更有优势,具有较好的通用性,在有外观、光照变化及遮挡等复杂情况下,均能获取较为准确和稳定的跟踪效果。     

A color-based particle filter for multiple object tracking in an outdoor environment

Tracking multiple objects is more challenging than tracking a single object. Some problems arise in multiple-object tracking that do not exist in single-object tracking, such as object occlusion, the appearance of a new object and the disappearance of an existing object, updating the occluded object, etc. In this article, we present an approach to handling multiple-object tracking in the presence of occlusions, background clutter, and changing appearance. The occlusion is handled by considering the predicted trajectories of the objects based on a dynamic model and likelihood measures. We also propose target-model-update conditions, ensuring the proper tracking of multiple objects. The proposed method is implemented in a probabilistic framework such as a particle filter in conjunction with a color feature. The particle filter has proven very successful for nonlinear and non-Gaussian estimation problems. It approximates a posterior probability density of the state, such as the object’s position, by using samples or particles, where each state is denoted as the hypothetical state of the tracked object and its weight. The observation likelihood of the objects is modeled based on a color histogram. The sample weight is measured based on the Bhattacharya coefficient, which measures the similarity between each sample’s histogram and a specified target model. The algorithm can successfully track multiple objects in the presence of occlusion and noise. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our method in tracking multiple objects.     

基于TLD框架的快速目标跟踪方法

现实中目标在被长期跟踪时容易发生形变、遮挡、光照干扰以及其它问题,现有跟踪算法虽能解决该系列问题但算法计算量巨大导致跟踪系统实时性能较差,很难应用于实际场合。因此准确快速跟踪目标成为近年来非常有挑战的热点课题。以国外学者Zdenek Kalal等人提出的TLD(Tracking-Learning-Detection)框架为基础,提出了三点改进方法。一根据目标所占整幅图像的面积大小动态调整被处理图像的分辨率,从总体上减少样本数量;二在目标邻近区域扫描生成样本,缩小检测器的检测范围;三更换检测部分中分类器模板匹配方法,实现快速匹配,提高算法运行速度。针对与不同的场景,实验表明上述问题在改进后的算法中得到了较大的改善,算法的计算量有效降低,系统运行速度得到提高。且对于实时摄像头监控,改进后算法在保证目标跟踪准确率的同时拥有较好的实时性。     

一种鲁棒高效的视频运动目标检测与跟踪算法

提出了一种视频运动目标的快速检测和稳定跟踪算法. 目标检测使用减背景法, 用均值法构造背景图像, 提出一种基于熵能和广义高斯分布的局部自适应阈值选取算法, 可有效克服噪声的影响. 采用基于特征匹配的目标跟踪方法, 提出一种LICS (Logarithm illuminance contrast statistic)特征, 该特征能够更加充分有效地表征目标, 可在光照和目标姿态变化的情况下实现刚体目标的稳定跟踪. 使用Kalman滤波限制搜索匹配范围以减小计算量. 用目标子区域匹配的方法解决目标相互遮挡时的跟踪问题. 实验结果表明, 该算法在运动目标检测效果、跟踪稳定性和运行时间方面都有良好的性能.     

Multiple objects tracking in the presence of long-term occlusions

We present a robust object tracking algorithm that handles spatially extended and temporally long object occlusions. The proposed approach is based on the concept of “object permanence” which suggests that a totally occluded object will re-emerge near its occluder. The proposed method does not require prior training to account for differences in the shape, size, color or motion of the objects to be tracked. Instead, the method automatically and dynamically builds appropriate object representations that enable robust and effective tracking and occlusion reasoning. The proposed approach has been evaluated on several image sequences showing either complex object manipulation tasks or human activity in the context of surveillance applications. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed tracker is capable of handling several challenging situations, where the labels of objects are correctly identified and maintained over time, despite the complex interactions among the tracked objects that lead to several layers of occlusions.     

Coupled multi-object tracking and labeling for vehicle trajectory estimation and matching

Efficient detection and tracking of moving objects in real life conditions is a very challenging research issue, mainly due to occlusions, illumination variations, appearance (disappearance) of new (existing) objects and overlapping issues. In this paper, we address these difficulties by incorporating non-linear and recursive identification mechanisms in motion-based detection and tracking algorithms. Non-linearity allows correct identification of object of complex visual properties while the adaptability makes the proposed scheme able to update its behaviour to the dynamic environmental changes. In addition, in this paper, we introduce the concept of polar spectrum which is a measure for determining the deviation of a vehicle trajectory from an ideal trace. The proposed methods (object tracking and trajectory matching) are applied in survey engineering problems dealing with safe design road turns. In particular, the automatically detected trajectory of a moving vehicle is compared with the ideal trace, through the polar spectrum measure, to determine the safety of a road turn. This trace is also compared with the one manually derived using photogrammetric algorithms and a small error is obtained verifying the efficiency of the method.     

Robust object tracking with RGBD-based sparse learning

Robust object tracking has been an important and challenging research area in the field of computer vision for decades. With the increasing popularity of affordable depth sensors, range data is widely used in visual tracking for its ability to provide robustness to varying illumination and occlusions. In this paper, a novel RGBD and sparse learning based tracker is proposed. The range data is integrated into the sparse learning framework in three respects. First, an extra depth view is added to the color image based visual features as an independent view for robust appearance modeling. Then, a special occlusion template set is designed to replenish the existing dictionary for handling various occlusion conditions. Finally, a depth-based occlusion detection method is proposed to efficiently determine an accurate time for the template update. Extensive experiments on both KITTI and Princeton data sets demonstrate that the proposed tracker outperforms the state-of-the-art tracking algorithms, including both sparse learning and RGBD based methods.     

Adaptive pyramid mean shift for global real-time visual tracking

Tracking objects in videos using the mean shift technique has attracted considerable attention. In this work, a novel approach for global target tracking based on mean shift technique is proposed. The proposed method represents the model and the candidate in terms of background weighted histogram and color weighted histogram, respectively, which can obtain precise object size adaptively with low computational complexity. To track targets whose displacements between two successive frames are relatively large, we implement the mean shift procedure via a coarse-to-fine way for global maximum seeking. This procedure is termed as adaptive pyramid mean shift, because it uses the pyramid analysis technique and can determine the pyramid level adaptively to decrease the number of iterations required to achieve convergence. Experimental results on various tracking videos and its application to a tracking and pointing subsystem show that the proposed method can successfully cope with different situations such as camera motion, camera vibration, camera zoom and focus, high-speed moving object tracking, partial occlusions, target scale variations, etc.     

基于子区域匹配的稀疏表示跟踪算法

经典稀疏表示目标跟踪算法在处理复杂视频时不免出现跟踪不稳定情况且当目标发生遮挡时易发生漂移现象。针对这一问题,提出一种基于子区域匹配的稀疏表示跟踪算法。首先,将初始目标模板划分为若干子区域,利用LK图像配准算法建立观测模型预测下一帧目标运动状态。然后,对预测的目标模型区域进行同等划分,并在匹配过程中寻找最优子区域。最后,在模板更新过程中引入一种新的模板校正机制,能够有效克服漂移现象。将该算法与多种目标跟踪算法在不同视频序列下进行对比,实验结果表明在目标发生遮挡、运动、光照影响及复杂背景等情况下该算法具有较为理想的跟踪效果,并与经典稀疏表示跟踪算法相比具有较好的跟踪性能。     

字典学习联合粒子滤波鲁棒跟踪

针对运动目标鲁棒跟踪问题,提出一种基于离线字典学习的视频目标跟踪鲁棒算法。采用字典编码方式提取目标的局部区域描述符,随后通过训练分类器将跟踪问题转化为背景和前景分类问题,最终通过粒子滤波对物体位置进行估计实现跟踪。该算法能够有效解决由于光照变化、背景复杂、快速运动、遮挡产生的跟踪困难。经过不同图像序列的实验对比表明,与现有方法相比,本文算法的鲁棒性较高。     

An online spatio-temporal tensor learning model for visual tracking and its applications to facial expression recognition

Robust visual tracking remains a technical challenge in real-world applications, as an object may involve many appearance variations. In existing tracking frameworks, objects in an image are often represented as vector observations, which discounts the 2-D intrinsic structure of the image. By considering an image in its actual form as a matrix, we construct the 3rd order tensor based object representation to preserve the spatial correlation within the 2-D image and fully exploit the useful temporal information. We perform incremental update of the object template using the N-mode SVD to model the appearance variations, which reduces the influence of template drifting and object occlusions. The proposed scheme efficiently learns a low-dimensional tensor representation through adaptively updating the eigenbasis of the tensor. Tensor based Bayesian inference in the particle filter framework is then utilized to realize tracking. We present the validation of the proposed tracking system by conducting the real-time facial expression recognition with video data and a live camera. Experiment evaluation on challenging benchmark image sequences undergoing appearance variations demonstrates the significance and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

融合SPA遮挡分割的多目标跟踪方法

复杂环境下的多目标视频跟踪是计算机视觉领域的一个难点,有效处理目标间遮挡是解决多目标跟踪问题的关键。将运动分割方法引入目标跟踪领域,提出一种融合骨架点指派(SPA)遮挡分割的多目标跟踪方法。由底层光流信息得到骨架点,并估计骨架点遮挡状态;综合使用目标外观、运动、颜色信息等高级语义信息,将骨架点指派给各个目标;最后以骨架点为核,对运动前景密集分类,得到准确的目标前景像素;在粒子滤波器跟踪框架下,使用概率外观模型进行多目标跟踪。在PETS2009数据集上的实验结果表明,文中方法能够改进现有多目标跟踪方法对目标间交互适应性较差的缺点,更好地处理动态遮挡问题。     

Tracking in a Dense Crowd Using Multiple Cameras

Tracking people in a dense crowd is a challenging problem for a single camera tracker due to occlusions and extensive motion that make human segmentation difficult. In this paper we suggest a method for simultaneously tracking all the people in a densely crowded scene using a set of cameras with overlapping fields of view. To overcome occlusions, the cameras are placed at a high elevation and only people’s heads are tracked. Head detection is still difficult since each foreground region may consist of multiple subjects. By combining data from several views, height information is extracted and used for head segmentation. The head tops, which are regarded as 2D patches at various heights, are detected by applying intensity correlation to aligned frames from the different cameras. The detected head tops are then tracked using common assumptions on motion direction and velocity. The method was tested on sequences in indoor and outdoor environments under challenging illumination conditions. It was successful in tracking up to 21 people walking in a small area (2.5 people per m²), in spite of severe and persistent occlusions.     

稀疏表示的Lucas-Kanade目标跟踪

提出一种新的目标跟踪算法,将稀疏表示应用于LK(Lucas-Kanade)图像配准框架.通过最小化校准误差的L1范数来求解目标的状态参数,从而实现对目标的准确跟踪.对目标同时建立两个外观模型:动态字典和静态模板,其中动态模型由动态字典的稀疏表示来描述目标外观.为了解决由于动态字典不断更新造成的跟踪漂移问题,一个两阶段迭代机制被采用.两个阶段所采用的目标模型分别为动态字典和静态模板.大量的实验结果表明,本文算法能有效应对外观变化、局部遮挡、光照变化等挑战,同时具有较好的实时性.     

基于改进的Transformer加Anchor-free网络的多目标跟踪算法

近年来,基于Anchor-free的多目标跟踪算法以其精度高、速度快、超参数少的特点被广泛研究.但是,实际场景中的目标遮挡使得此类算法仍然面临挑战,这类算法会对遮挡后重新出现的目标的身份信息进行错误切换.针对以上问题,提出了一种基于改进的Transformer加Anchor-free网络的多目标跟踪算法(Transfo...     

A variational method for contour tracking via covariance matching

This paper presents a novel formulation for contour tracking.We model the second-order statistics of image regions and perform covariance matching under the variational level set framework.Specifically,covariance matrix is adopted as a visual object representation for partial differential equation(PDE) based contour tracking.Log-Euclidean calculus is used as a covariance distance metric instead of Euclidean distance which is unsuitable for measuring the similarities between covariance matrices,because the matrices typically lie on a non-Euclidean manifold.A novel image energy functional is formulated by minimizing the distance metric between the candidate object region and a given template,and maximizing the one between the background region and the template.The corresponding gradient flow is then derived according to a variational approach,enabling partial differential equations(PDEs) based contour tracking.Experiments on several challenging sequences prove the validity of the proposed method.     

Object tracking by exploiting adaptive region-wise linear subspace representations and adaptive templates in an iterative particle filter

Aiming at tracking visual objects under harsh conditions, such as partial occlusions, illumination changes, and appearance variations, this paper proposes an iterative particle filter incorporated with an adaptive region-wise linear subspace (RWLS) representation of objects. The iterative particle filter employs a coarse-to-fine scheme to decisively generate particles that convey better hypothetic estimates of tracking parameters. As a result, a higher tracking accuracy can be achieved by aggregating the good hypothetic estimates from particles. Accompanying with the iterative particle filter, the RWLS representation is a special design to tackle the partial occlusion problem which often causes tracking failure. Moreover, the RWLS representation is made adaptive by exploiting an efficient incremental updating mechanism. This incremental updating mechanism can adapt the RWLS to gradual changes in object appearances and illumination conditions. Additionally, we also propose the adaptive mechanism to continuously adjust the object templates so that the varying appearances of tracked objects can be well handled. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves better performance than other related prior arts.