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.     

Robust object tracking via multi-scale patch based sparse coding histogram

There are many visual tracking algorithms that are based on sparse representation appearance model. Most of them are modeled by local patches with fixed patch scale, which make trackers less effective when objects undergone appearance changes such as illumination variation, pose change or partial occlusion. To solve the problem, a novel appearance representation model is proposed via multi-scale patch based sparse coding histogram for robust visual tracking. In this paper, the appearance of an object is modeled by different scale patches, which are represented by sparse coding histogram with different scale dictionaries. Then a similarity measure is applied to the calculation of the distance between the sparse coding histograms of target candidate and target template. Finally, the similarity score of the target candidate is passed to a particle filter to estimate the target state sequentially in the tracking process. Additionally, in order to decrease the visual drift caused by partial occlusion, an occlusion handling strategy is adopted, which takes the spatial information of multi-scale patches and occlusion into account. Based on the experimental results on some benchmarks of video sequences, our tracker outperforms state-of-the-art tracking methods.     

Object tracking via appearance modeling and sparse representation

This paper proposes a robust tracking method by the combination of appearance modeling and sparse representation. In this method, the appearance of an object is modeled by multiple linear subspaces. Then within the sparse representation framework, we construct a similarity measure to evaluate the distance between a target candidate and the learned appearance model. Finally, tracking is achieved by Bayesian inference, in which a particle filter is used to estimate the target state sequentially over time. With the tracking result, the learned appearance model will be updated adaptively. The combination of appearance modeling and sparse representation makes our tracking algorithm robust to most of possible target variations due to illumination changes, pose changes, deformations and occlusions. Theoretic analysis and experiments compared with state-of-the-art methods demonstrate the effectivity of the proposed algorithm.     

一种新型非线性滤波的多特征融合跟踪算法

为有效解决非线性系统的状态估计问题,提出一种新型非线性滤波算法。该算法通过在积分卡尔曼滤波中引入修正因子,对积分点进行优化重组,并采用修正后的积分卡尔曼滤波产生优选建议分布函数,较好地克服了粒子退化现象。在新算法的框架内,利用颜色和运动边缘特征作为观测模型进行视频目标跟踪,并通过D-S证据理论的方法进行权值融合,较好地克服了单一颜色特征在姿态改变、相似背景遮挡等情况下跟踪稳定性较差的问题。实验表明本方法对复杂条件下的目标跟踪问题在保持较强鲁棒性的同时,跟踪精度提升了近32%。     

基于混合观测模型的粒子滤波跟踪算法

为了提高目标外观迅速变化时视觉跟踪算法的鲁棒性,提出了一种基于混合观测模型的粒子滤波跟踪算法。在粒子滤波构架下,使用加权核直方图模型结合mean shift算法对粒子进行初定位,通过正交子空间模型作为精确的观测模型,估计目标的最终状态。这样既能迅速地学习到目标外观变化的趋势,又避免了使用正交子空间而产生的跟踪漂移。实验结果表明,该算法在光照变化、姿态变化、遮挡的情况下,均具有较强的鲁棒性。     

基于子空间自适应学习的粒子滤波跟踪算法

为了提高目标外观迅速变化时视觉跟踪算法的鲁棒性,提出了一种基于自适应子空间学习的粒子滤波跟踪算法。在粒子滤波构架下,建立状态判决机制,根据判决结果并结合主成分分析(PCA)子空间与正交子空间的特点,选择合适的学习方法。这样既能准确、稳定地学习到目标的低维子空间,又能迅速地学习到目标外观变化的趋势。同时,加入鲁棒估计技术处理遮挡问题,避免了对目标状态估计的影响。实验结果表明,该算法在光照变化、姿态变化、遮挡的情况下,均具有较强的鲁棒性。     

基于多外观模型的自适应加权目标跟踪算法*

偏最小二乘(PLS)跟踪算法忽略特征间及外观模型间的差异,容易受到光照、遮挡等因素的影响,降低目标的跟踪精度.针对上述问题,文中提出基于多外观模型的自适应加权目标跟踪算法(AWMA).首先使用PLS对目标区域逐步建立多个外观模型.然后根据各外观模型中特征的重要性及目标的显著度建立自适应权重的综合模型,融合多个外观模型完成目标与样本的误差分析.最后使用粒子滤波实现目标跟踪.实验表明,文中算法能更有效地过滤噪声数据,提高目标跟踪的鲁棒性和时间性能.     

改进的基于颜色的粒子滤波目标跟踪算法

提出了一种改进的粒子滤波算法,在遮挡情况下,能鲁棒地跟踪运动目标.该方法是把改进的颜色直方图结合到粒子滤波的观测模型中,并提出了一种判断目标遮挡的分块检测遮挡的方法.首先对传统的以核函数赋权值的方法进行改进,把目标中心附近的像素都赋予最大的权值,目标的边缘由于遮挡等原因采用指数分布赋权值;在遮挡检测时,提出了把跟踪窗分为左右两个子部分,分别计算相似性度量的方法,提高了遮挡检测的实时性和准确性;同时,该算法对旋转和尺寸的变化具有鲁棒性.实验结果表明,与基本的粒子滤波算法相比,提出的新算法能更好的处理目标跟踪中的遮挡问题.     

Robust tracking with adaptive appearance learning and occlusion detection

It is still challenging to design a robust and efficient tracking algorithm in complex scenes. We propose a new object tracking algorithm with adaptive appearance learning and occlusion detection in an efficient self-tuning particle filter framework. The appearance of an object is modeled with a set of weighted and ordered submanifolds, which can guarantee the adaptability when there is fast illumination or pose change. To overcome the occlusion problem, we use the reconstruction error data of the appearance model to extract occlusion region by graph cuts. And the tracking result is improved with feedback of occlusion detection. The motion model is also integrated with adaptability to overcome the abrupt motion problem. To improve the efficiency of particle filter, the number of samples is tuned with respect to the scene conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm can achieve great robustness, high accuracy and good efficiency in challenging scenes.     

多特征自适应融合的粒子滤波跟踪算法

针对跟踪过程中目标形态不断变化或部分遮挡导致鲁棒性差的问题,提出一种基于多特征自适应融合的粒子滤波跟踪算法.该算法从视觉特征集中选取了描述能力强的2种特征,并将其按照与目标模型的多尺度相似度进行线性融合;为了减小跟踪漂移,通过计算当前目标模型与初始目标模型的多尺度相似度自适应地更新目标模型.大量仿真实验结果表明,文中算法可以鲁棒地跟踪到部分遮挡和形态变化的运动目标.     

多模型协作的分块目标跟踪

为解决复杂场景下,基于整体表观模型的目标跟踪算法容易丢失目标的问题,提出一种多模型协作的分块目标跟踪算法.融合基于局部敏感直方图的产生式模型和基于超像素分割的判别式模型构建目标表观模型,提取局部敏感直方图的亮度不变特征来抵制光照变化的影响;引入目标模型的自适应分块划分策略以解决局部敏感直方图算法缺少有效遮挡处理机制的问题,提高目标的抗遮挡性;通过相对熵和均值聚类度量子块的局部差异置信度和目标背景置信度,建立双权值约束机制和子块异步更新策略,在粒子滤波框架下,选择置信度高的子块定位目标.实验结果表明,本文方法在复杂场景下具有良好的跟踪精度和稳定性.     

基于区域协方差矩阵和2DPCA学习的视频跟踪方法研究

针对PCA在视频跟踪应用中需要将图像转换成向量而造成信息丢失和小样本等问题,提出一种基于2DPCA学习的自适应性视频跟踪方法。该方法将图像矩阵直接进行处理,保持了跟踪目标的空间结构信息。在粒子滤波框架下采用仿射变换运动模型,并通过协方差特征融合方式评估目标运动状态,提高了目标外观模型的学习能力,实现了鲁棒的自适应性跟踪效果。进行了标准的视频序列测试,结果证明提出的算法能够较好地适应目标姿态、光线和部分遮挡等跟踪问题。     

改进协方差矩阵的智能车视觉目标跟踪方法

智能车辆视觉目标具有非线性、噪声分布非高斯性的典型特点，现有算法难以实时估计目标的状态。针对识别物体复杂且多变，很难用完全的特征来描述待识别目标及其背景的不断变化，提出了一种用于融合颜色特征及SURF（Speed-Up Robust Features）特征的协方差矩阵来改进粒子滤波算法，从而提升视觉目标跟踪的实时性，满足智能车辆的要求。首先，对采集的图像进行预处理来获取感兴趣区域。接着，通过融合颜色特征及SURF特征构造范围感兴趣区域（Region Of Interest，ROI）的目标特征协方差矩阵，建立目标状态预测模型及状态观测模型，用于改进粒子滤波算法粒子重采样过程，实现对目标的精确跟踪。最后，将该方法与Mean-shift算法和颜色属性（CN）算法进行对比。实验结果表明，在智能车视觉跟踪过程中对光环境瞬时变化、目标物体存在短时遮挡以及目标物体姿态改变时，该算法在满足智能车辆对实时性要求的前提下，有效提升算法的精确度及鲁棒性。     

Robust object tracking under appearance change conditions

We propose a robust visual tracking framework based on particle filter to deal with the object appearance changes due to varying illumination, pose variantions, and occlusions. We mainly improve the observation model and re-sampling process in a particle filter. We use on-line updating appearance model, affine transformation, and M-estimation to construct an adaptive observation model. On-line updating appearance model can adapt to the changes of illumination partially. Affine transformation-based similarity measurement is introduced to tackle pose variantions, and M-estimation is used to handle the occluded object in computing observation likelihood. To take advantage of the most recent observation and produce a suboptimal Gaussian proposal distribution, we incorporate Kalman filter into a particle filter to enhance the performance of the resampling process. To estimate the posterior probability density properly with lower computational complexity, we only employ a single Kalman filter to propagate Gaussian distribution. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm by tracking visual objects in the recorded video sequences.     

利用多特征混沌粒子滤波的视觉目标跟踪方法

随着摄像终端的增多以及自动视频分析需求量的增大,针对视频序列中存在突然运动、遮挡、运动模糊等干扰因素时传统视觉目标跟踪方法很难获得鲁棒性高、精确稳定的目标跟踪的问题,提出了利用多特征混沌粒子滤波的视觉目标跟踪方法。首先,基于非线性动力学预测进行混沌建模,利用混沌映射的梯度优化函数来搜索状态空间以找到参考轨迹;然后设计了一种用于视觉跟踪的混沌粒子滤波器,并改进运动表观模型,引入颜色、纹理和深度的特征完善滤波器的性能;最后,将多特征混沌粒子滤波器与其他视觉目标跟踪方法应用于VOT17和TB 数据集进行对比分析,以论证该方法的准确性。结果表明,提出的多特征混沌粒子滤波方法显著减少了粒子数量、搜索空间和滤波器发散,其精度高出其他方法约10%,在突然运动、遮挡和运动模糊等情况下整体性能优于其他几种对比方法。     

户外环境下抗遮挡的运动目标跟踪方法

针对户外环境光线和气候条件多变以及目标间相互遮挡对目标检测和跟踪的影响,提出了一种基于改进的高斯混合模型方法来检测运动目标,并消除噪声和阴影;同时采用基于Kalman滤波器的预测模型和最大后验概率目标匹配相结合的方法来实现目标的连续跟踪。实验表明,该方法能实现目标的稳定跟踪,且能够处理目标相互遮挡的情况,计算复杂度较低,基本满足实时应用的需求。     

结合尺度估计MST和粒子滤波的视频目标跟踪

在视频序列的实时目标跟踪中,针对经典均值漂移跟踪（MST）方法不能应对遮挡、尺度变化等问题,提出一种结合MST、自学习尺度探测器和粒子滤波的跟踪方法。采用MST算法在视频帧中跟踪目标,当目标收敛到局部最小值时重新初始化目标。提出一种基于在线学习的探测器,用来自适应更新MST的目标模型,使其能够自动调整目标尺度。另外,当出现完全遮挡时,启动粒子滤波器,通过概率计算来估计目标位置,使MST能够在目标离开遮挡时恢复跟踪。在通用数据集PETS视频序列上的实验结果表明,相比其他几种较新的MST方法,提出的方法具有更高的跟踪准确性,可以应用于实时检测和目标跟踪等应用中。     

稀疏编码目标跟踪方法研究

针对稀疏表示用于目标跟踪时存在重构误差表示不够精确、目标模板更新错误等问题,提出一种改进的稀疏编码模型。该模型无需重构误差满足特定的先验概率分布,且加入对编码系数的自适应约束,可以取得更优的编码向量,使得跟踪结果更为准确。在此基础上,将这种改进的编码模型与粒子滤波目标跟踪算法相结合,研究并实现一种新的基于鲁棒稀疏编码模型的目标跟踪方法。该方法对每个粒子的采样区域进行编码,用所得的稀疏编码向量作为当前粒子的观测量,并采用目标模板分级更新策略,使得目标模板更加准确。实验结果表明,方法可以较好地解决目标部分遮挡和光照变化等干扰下的目标跟踪问题。     

以颜色和形状直方图为线索的粒子滤波人脸跟踪

跟踪器的设计和跟踪线索的选择与表达是人脸跟踪中的两大关键因素,针对一般人脸跟踪算法中常用简单椭圆来描述人脸形状线索时易受背景干扰的缺点,以及视频目标跟踪中动态模型和观测模型的非线性非高斯特点,提出了一种以颜色和形状直方图为线索的粒子滤波人脸跟踪算法,该算法在粒子滤波基本框架之下,引入了一种新的用直方图来描述人脸形状的方法,并对其进行了改进,用来作为人脸跟踪的形状线索。同时,为了减轻背景干扰,提出了一种经验有效边缘的检测方法。实验表明,该跟踪方法不仅能有效地处理人脸旋转、背景中的肤色干扰和部分遮掩问题,并且能够在由于大面积遮掩等原因而丢失目标的情况下,及时有效地重新捕获已丢失的目标。     

具有尺度和旋转适应性的长时间目标跟踪

目标发生尺度和旋转变化会给长时间目标跟踪带来很大的挑战,针对该问题,本文提出了具有尺度和旋转适应性的鲁棒目标跟踪算法.首先针对跟踪过程中目标存在的尺度变化和旋转运动,提出一种基于傅里叶-梅林变换和核相关滤波的目标尺度和旋转参数估计方法.该方法能够实现连续空间的目标尺度和旋转参数估计,采用核相关滤波提高了估计的鲁棒性和准确性.然后针对长时间目标跟踪过程中,有时不可避免地会出现跟踪失败的情况（例如由于长时间半遮挡或全遮挡等）,提出一种基于直方图和方差加权的目标搜索方法.当目标丢失时,通过提出的搜索方法能够快速从图像中确定目标可能存在的区域,使得跟踪算法具有从失败中恢复的能力.本文还训练了两个核相关滤波器用于估计跟踪结果的置信度和目标平移,通过专门的核相关滤波器能够使得估计的跟踪结果置信度更加准确和鲁棒,置信度的估计结果可用于激活基于直方图和方差加权的目标搜索模块,并判断搜索窗口中是否包含目标.本文在目标跟踪标准数据集（Online object tracking benchmark,OTB）上对提出的算法和目前主流的目标跟踪算法进行对比实验,验证了本文提出算法的有效性和优越性.