A compact portable object tracking system

Computer vision and object tracking are becoming increasingly more important with a wide variety of applications in our daily life. Most of the available tracking systems are not compact enough to be mounted on small ground or aerial robots. Also, most of these systems are relatively expensive. The tracking system presented in this work is a compact low cost system which makes it suitable for weight sensitive applications. The proposed system is a commercial off the shelf android-based mobile device that is mounted on a pan/tilt gimbal. The system utilizes the camera and the processor of the mobile device to capture and process video frames. The tracking algorithm is a newly modified algorithm that combines three well known algorithms: SURF, CAMShift, Lucas-Kanade. Each of these algorithms is deployed at a different stage of the tracking process which yields a reliable real-time tracking system. The newly modified tracking algorithm was developed using OpenCV within an Android environment. An indoor lab experimental test showed that the system was able to track a (3cm × 5cm) object moving at a speed of 133cm/sec and placed 50 cm away from the system.