Time efficient ghost removal for motion detection in visual surveillance systems

Segmentation of foreground objects is an important and essential task for many systems that aim to carry out motion tracking, object classification, event detection and is used in applications such as traffic monitoring and analysis, access control to special areas, human and vehicle identification and the detection of anomalous behaviour. The most common approach for detecting moving objects is background subtraction, in which each frame of a video sequence is compared against a background model. A large number of background subtraction algorithms have been proposed 1], but problems remain for moving object identification under certain conditions. One of the toughest problems in background subtraction is caused by the detection of false objects when an object that belongs to the background (e.g. after staying stationary for some time) starts to move away. This generates what are called `ghosts?. It is important to address the problem because ghost objects will adversely affect many tasks such as object classification, tracking and event analysis (e.g. abandoned item detection). This Letter focuses on the problem of ghost identification and elimination. We used a state-of-the-art industrial tracker which includes basic background subtraction and object tracking. Then we included our ghost detection algorithm into the basic tracker to identify and eliminate ghosts. Finally, we systematically evaluated and compared performance on urban traffic video sequences.