Unknown-color spherical object detection and tracking

Detection and tracking of an unknown-color spherical object in a partially-known environment using a robot with a single camera is the core problem addressed in this article. A novel color detection mechanism, which exploits the geometrical properties of the spherical object´s projection onto the image plane, precedes the object´s detection process. A Kalman filter-based tracker uses the object detection in its update step and tracks the spherical object. Real robot experimental evaluation of the proposed method is presented on soccer robots detecting and tracking an unknown-color ball.